Erik Moeller wrote:

On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte erikzachte@infodisiac.com wrote:

...

Later we got closed wikis and private board chats as a side affair. Recent statements like the ones quoted above give the impression that both board members find the Wikimedia community has become a pain in the neck at times, better to be ignored, or kept in the dark.

No. What Angela pointed out is that there was an open meeting about the committees, about the need for a CEO, and so on (we created a separate meeting specifically to discuss the ExecCom). For arguing for the open meeting, Angela and myself received little but scorn from the existing group of people who were likely to serve on these committees. (Anthere was in the middle of her pregnancy at the time.) The community members from the outside who joined hardly participated at all.

The meeting was on the 11th of feb. The baby born on the 7th.

So, I rather was in the middle of my hospital stay :-)

ant

You express my deep thoughts better I could do. Foundation's opaqueness and distance to the community are growing. Question is : and now what ? Small principles reforms, like changing the board structure are only a plaster on a wooden leg. In my opinion, there is only one source of legitimacy here : The community. So, I think a reform should only start from there. All reforms organized by a small group of persons meeting in a corner will finish in a dead-end. Call me Stallman-zealot if you want...

Traroth

----- Message d'origine ---- De : Delirium delirium@hackish.org À : Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Envoyé le : Jeudi, 1 Juin 2006, 9h09mn 31s Objet : Re: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

Well, Jimmy Wales has his vision for the future of Wikimedia, and it doesn't really match with any of my views of what it should be. However, he's in charge and has said in no uncertain terms that he's not going to open up a majority of the board to community elections anytime in the near future. So, I don't see what can really be done about that. I'm pretty resigned to the fact that committees, lawyers, and other random things seem to spring from nowhere without anyone, sometimes even the two elected board members, having heard about them. Clearly we aren't in control of the organization, and I don't see how that's likely to change.

In general, this doesn't feel like a free-culture organization. I don't require Richard Stallman clones to be heading up all such organizations (although at least then there'd be no doubts), but this place feels more like, say, Red Hat---a commercial entity involved in free culture and making concessions to maintain community support---than it feels like a thoroughly free-culture organization like Debian. For the most part the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a fine ISP hosting Wikipedia, but I certainly don't feel like they represent me or reflect my values, besides the single value of "producing a copyleft encyclopedia", the betterment of which strangely rarely seems to be among the various proposals I've been seeing lately. I don't really see what can be done about that besides damage control or, if absolutely necessary, a fork.

Now as for damage control---you *do* see people get quite involved when it looks like the beaurocracy is intruding into the reason we free-content people are here in the first place, Wikipedia. You'll notice the series of WP:OFFICE interventions on en.* attracted considerable community "participation". Failing a WMF that represents my interests, I'll at least work for a WMF that serves as an acceptable ISP for Wikipedia.

Now perhaps it isn't completely impossible, but I think it'll be a continual uphill battle without significant high-level change. I would feel much more comfortable, for example, with a board that consisted of Jimbo, Anthere, Angela, and two other prominent community representatives chosen by some reasonable election process. In principle, influencing things from the minority is possible (Jimbo presumably doesn't want to run everything on 3-2 votes), but it colors the whole process.

Which is, incidentally, my main problem with a paid staff. If they do only technical things like file paperwork, that's fine, but I'm quite sure there will be a slippery slope there, judging from past experience in this organization.

-Mark

_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Delirium wrote:

So, I don't see what can really be done about that. I'm pretty resigned to the fact that committees, lawyers, and other random things seem to spring from nowhere without anyone, sometimes even the two elected board members, having heard about them. Clearly we aren't in control of the organization, and I don't see how that's likely to change.

That is a very strange interpretation of recent events, to be honest with you. The committees did not spring "from nowhere" but are, as you may want to notice, creations of, by, and for the community. The lawyers are not robots, they are community members. When I turn to someone like Michael Snow or Brad Patrick or Jean-Baptiste Souffron for help with legal issues, I frankly think it is a deep insult to them for you to suggest that they are not members of the community.

In general, this doesn't feel like a free-culture organization. I don't require Richard Stallman clones to be heading up all such organizations

Do you have any idea how the FSF is run? It is not a community organization at all.

Hoi, You assume that people get to know the Wikimedia Foundation through Wikipedia. A common assumption but it is wrong in that the Wikimedia Foundation is there not only for Wikipedia but also for Wikipedia.

There are other project and when people consider things it is most often seen in the light of what is good for Wikipedia must be good for the rest. Well, suprise that is a fallacy.

Thanks, GerardM

On 6/1/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:

--- Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:

...

On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte erikzachte@infodisiac.com wrote:

...

Later we got closed wikis and private board chats

as a side affair. Recent

...

statements like the ones quoted above give the

impression that both board

...

members find the Wikimedia community has become a

pain in the neck at times,

...

better to be ignored, or kept in the dark.

No. What Angela pointed out is that there was an open meeting about the committees, about the need for a CEO, and so on (we created a separate meeting specifically to discuss the ExecCom). For arguing for the open meeting, Angela and myself received little but scorn from the existing group of people who were likely to serve on these committees. (Anthere was in the middle of her pregnancy at the time.) The community members from the outside who joined hardly participated at all.

This wasn't a small number of people, something like 70 in the main meeting. See the logs at:

http://scireview.de/wiki/com2/channel.log

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_committee/February_11%2C_2006_open_...

...

Note that to this day, the second log contains a claim by Jimbo that I "deeply misrepresented" him during the ExecCom meeting, without any actual elaboration of why or how that is the case. I will not repeat some of the other things that have been said.

You will also note that in the end, it was mostly me and another small group of people arguing. I know you were there, but there are many people who are on this list who weren't. Now we are given the usual round of whining: "I don't like IRC!" "I wasn't informed!" "My cat ate my homework!"

Participating in these meetings, for me, has not exactly been an exercise in gaining popularity or favor; rather the opposite. Taking a stand against a prevailing line of thinking strains relations with people, and that should not be done unless there is a clear benefit.

This was a crucial meeting where a case could have been made, by the community, for organizing and structuring Wikimedia in an open and participatory fashion. There are very few people who were willing to actually make that case.

For the "inside people" this is easy to explain: as we see with adminship on Wikipedia, open and accountable models are quickly subjected to constant harassment by self-appointed "accountability activists". Having your private little clubs and mailing lists (some of which, as we have heard, even the Board doesn't know about or have access to) makes things so much easier. Why put up with the hassle of an open meeting when you can have a closed one?

As for the outside people, perhaps their lack of participation is because they don't care about "organizational stuff," perhaps it's because Wikimedia has historically been so opaque that people have expected that it needs to stay that way. Whatever the reason, people like myself frankly lose the motivation to invest time in a lost cause.

Just like Wikipedia has to deal with vandalism and trolls for allowing anyone to edit, an open organization would have to deal with incompetence and maliciousness in return for rapid growth and network benefits. Rather than invent the organizational equivalent of wiki processes -- something which would require a lot of creative thinking from the brightest minds of Wikimedia -- it's much more convenient to say: "wiki and organization are different things and need to be kept separate." And, guess what, the lawyers agree!

There is virtually no active pressure or demand from the actual community for openness, participatory processes and transparency within the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, there are very little. The committees which have been formed are useful, but they pick and choose their members on a case by case basis (or perhaps I should say "face by face") -- cf. GerardM's rejected membership application to the Special Projects committee. At least during the transitional phase, the amount of bureauracy is even worse than it was at the time we were ruled by the Board and the Board alone.

A process whereby every committee holds open, widely announced meetings and where advisor status is granted instantly without bureaucratic process was discussed, but does not seem to be practiced by any of the committees.

Even a trivial idea like putting a couple of new community-elected members on the Board has been proposed years ago but never implemented. But, then again, has there been any pressure from the community for such change to hapepn? Hardly at all. When a couple of "big shot" outside people are appointed to Board positions and the Board remains otherwise as it is, sure, there will be the usual round of whining. But during the processes that actually matter, the people who whine later tend to be conspicuously absent.

So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the very philosophy that made WP a success is not applicable to organizations. Wikimedia will become a functioning non-profit with the usual bureucratic processes, some successful fundraising, a few good partnerships here and there, a bunch of "professionals", lots of infighting among volunteers, etc. It will not become the open platform for social and technological change that it could be -- the wide network of people who are interested in building a free knowledge and free culture movement. And who is to blame for that? Not the people who made it so. They have only the best interests of Wikimedia in mind and work their ass of to do what they can to make it a success. The people who are to blame are those who did not participate in turning Wikimedia into something else, something larger, when it mattered.

Erik _______________________________________________

Without knowing the full history, or many details at all, I can understand both sides of this. It is a difficult issue. Right now, the people who will end up with access to the system, will simply be those who have made themselves known to the people with access. This is generally how the world works, and there has been some discusion about the problems with this in the Checkuser thread as well. Within an organization like WMF, this leads to a few problems in my eyes. One you miss out on the qualified, experienced people's input who do not happen to have a political bent. And most importantly you skew the whole organization away from the diverse and global feel. That saddens me sitting here in the US, so I imagine is really upsets the more "diverse" people around. This is also the reason there is the blurry line between en.WP and WMF that has been brought up here. Because most people only get access to the latter is through the former.

That said it is much easier to get things done when they are kept closed. I cannot imagine how a truly open system would work, and can easily believe it would not work well. I am not so much of an idealist as I once was to insist on principles. I understand the need for pragmatism. However, I would like encourage everyone to take a minute to examine where we are. Examine what are the criteria for information being put in a public area vs. a closed one. Be sure things are pushed to open areas whenever it is practical. Make a real effort to recruit more people in from smaller languages instead of just waiting for them to show up here. I think more recruiting should be done period. For needed skill sets, etc. I have never seen the WMF foundation asking the communities for anything besides money and trust. I believe the communities have much more to offer.

Honestly I trust you all, I don't need to read all the discussions to feel comfortable here. However, I think that by doing things as you are, you are overwhelming yourselves and missing out on the experience available in the wider communities. I think anyone who reads this list must get the feeling many people are simply overwhelmed with what they have taken on. The idea seems to be this will be fixed by hiring professionals, but the further that route is followed the more closed this will become. Or else we will have major retention problems. I can not imagine having my *job* open to the critique of all of you. The email where it was misunderstood that BradP was a paid employee is the tip of the iceberg. I would suggest putting out a call for volunteers for specific tasks, and ask for resumes(which is a good example of something that *should* be kept closed). Look for people with actual experience and that can work together so no one is overwhelmed. And whenever possible people you do *not* already know well. Seriously on a wiki a through read of someone contributions can tell you most all the things you would learn from a solid acquaintance.

I truly believe if there is not a effort made to keep everything as open as possible now, there will be when the chapters come into thier own. So I am not too concerned. Although it would be better from a practical standpoint, if the middle ground could be found now.

Birgitte SB

---

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Andre Engels wrote:

2006/6/1, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:

...

Hoi, You assume that people get to know the Wikimedia Foundation through Wikipedia. A common assumption but it is wrong in that the Wikimedia Foundation is there not only for Wikipedia but also for Wikipedia.

There are other project and when people consider things it is most often seen in the light of what is good for Wikipedia must be good for the rest. Well, suprise that is a fallacy.

This reminds me of the attitude of the founders of the Dutch Wikimedia chapter: "You are of the opinion that the Dutch Wikimedia chapter is there for Wikipedia. We're not, we're for those other projects too. And because of that we don't need to answer questions from people from Wikipedia."

Precisely

Still no answer from these people to questions now asked months ago. The "ostrichpolicy" seems to work perfectly in the wikimedia organisation. Stick your head in the sand, refuse to answer and you will get by unpunished. While the people who complain get called and asked to leave wikimedia.

Waerth/Walter

Birgitte SB wrote:

--- Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:

...

On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte erikzachte@infodisiac.com wrote:

...

Later we got closed wikis and private board chats

as a side affair. Recent

...

statements like the ones quoted above give the

impression that both board

...

members find the Wikimedia community has become a

pain in the neck at times,

...

better to be ignored, or kept in the dark.

No. What Angela pointed out is that there was an open meeting about the committees, about the need for a CEO, and so on (we created a separate meeting specifically to discuss the ExecCom). For arguing for the open meeting, Angela and myself received little but scorn from the existing group of people who were likely to serve on these committees. (Anthere was in the middle of her pregnancy at the time.) The community members from the outside who joined hardly participated at all.

This wasn't a small number of people, something like 70 in the main meeting. See the logs at:

http://scireview.de/wiki/com2/channel.log

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_committee/February_11%2C_2006_open_...

...

Note that to this day, the second log contains a claim by Jimbo that I "deeply misrepresented" him during the ExecCom meeting, without any actual elaboration of why or how that is the case. I will not repeat some of the other things that have been said.

You will also note that in the end, it was mostly me and another small group of people arguing. I know you were there, but there are many people who are on this list who weren't. Now we are given the usual round of whining: "I don't like IRC!" "I wasn't informed!" "My cat ate my homework!"

Participating in these meetings, for me, has not exactly been an exercise in gaining popularity or favor; rather the opposite. Taking a stand against a prevailing line of thinking strains relations with people, and that should not be done unless there is a clear benefit.

This was a crucial meeting where a case could have been made, by the community, for organizing and structuring Wikimedia in an open and participatory fashion. There are very few people who were willing to actually make that case.

For the "inside people" this is easy to explain: as we see with adminship on Wikipedia, open and accountable models are quickly subjected to constant harassment by self-appointed "accountability activists". Having your private little clubs and mailing lists (some of which, as we have heard, even the Board doesn't know about or have access to) makes things so much easier. Why put up with the hassle of an open meeting when you can have a closed one?

As for the outside people, perhaps their lack of participation is because they don't care about "organizational stuff," perhaps it's because Wikimedia has historically been so opaque that people have expected that it needs to stay that way. Whatever the reason, people like myself frankly lose the motivation to invest time in a lost cause.

Just like Wikipedia has to deal with vandalism and trolls for allowing anyone to edit, an open organization would have to deal with incompetence and maliciousness in return for rapid growth and network benefits. Rather than invent the organizational equivalent of wiki processes -- something which would require a lot of creative thinking from the brightest minds of Wikimedia -- it's much more convenient to say: "wiki and organization are different things and need to be kept separate." And, guess what, the lawyers agree!

There is virtually no active pressure or demand from the actual community for openness, participatory processes and transparency within the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, there are very little. The committees which have been formed are useful, but they pick and choose their members on a case by case basis (or perhaps I should say "face by face") -- cf. GerardM's rejected membership application to the Special Projects committee. At least during the transitional phase, the amount of bureauracy is even worse than it was at the time we were ruled by the Board and the Board alone.

A process whereby every committee holds open, widely announced meetings and where advisor status is granted instantly without bureaucratic process was discussed, but does not seem to be practiced by any of the committees.

Even a trivial idea like putting a couple of new community-elected members on the Board has been proposed years ago but never implemented. But, then again, has there been any pressure from the community for such change to hapepn? Hardly at all. When a couple of "big shot" outside people are appointed to Board positions and the Board remains otherwise as it is, sure, there will be the usual round of whining. But during the processes that actually matter, the people who whine later tend to be conspicuously absent.

So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the very philosophy that made WP a success is not applicable to organizations. Wikimedia will become a functioning non-profit with the usual bureucratic processes, some successful fundraising, a few good partnerships here and there, a bunch of "professionals", lots of infighting among volunteers, etc. It will not become the open platform for social and technological change that it could be -- the wide network of people who are interested in building a free knowledge and free culture movement. And who is to blame for that? Not the people who made it so. They have only the best interests of Wikimedia in mind and work their ass of to do what they can to make it a success. The people who are to blame are those who did not participate in turning Wikimedia into something else, something larger, when it mattered.

Erik _______________________________________________

Without knowing the full history, or many details at all, I can understand both sides of this. It is a difficult issue. Right now, the people who will end up with access to the system, will simply be those who have made themselves known to the people with access. This is generally how the world works, and there has been some discusion about the problems with this in the Checkuser thread as well. Within an organization like WMF, this leads to a few problems in my eyes. One you miss out on the qualified, experienced people's input who do not happen to have a political bent. And most importantly you skew the whole organization away from the diverse and global feel. That saddens me sitting here in the US, so I imagine is really upsets the more "diverse" people around. This is also the reason there is the blurry line between en.WP and WMF that has been brought up here. Because most people only get access to the latter is through the former.

That said it is much easier to get things done when they are kept closed. I cannot imagine how a truly open system would work, and can easily believe it would not work well. I am not so much of an idealist as I once was to insist on principles. I understand the need for pragmatism. However, I would like encourage everyone to take a minute to examine where we are. Examine what are the criteria for information being put in a public area vs. a closed one. Be sure things are pushed to open areas whenever it is practical. Make a real effort to recruit more people in from smaller languages instead of just waiting for them to show up here. I think more recruiting should be done period. For needed skill sets, etc. I have never seen the WMF foundation asking the communities for anything besides money and trust. I believe the communities have much more to offer.

Honestly I trust you all, I don't need to read all the discussions to feel comfortable here. However, I think that by doing things as you are, you are overwhelming yourselves and missing out on the experience available in the wider communities. I think anyone who reads this list must get the feeling many people are simply overwhelmed with what they have taken on. The idea seems to be this will be fixed by hiring professionals, but the further that route is followed the more closed this will become. Or else we will have major retention problems. I can not imagine having my *job* open to the critique of all of you. The email where it was misunderstood that BradP was a paid employee is the tip of the iceberg. I would suggest putting out a call for volunteers for specific tasks, and ask for resumes(which is a good example of something that *should* be kept closed). Look for people with actual experience and that can work together so no one is overwhelmed. And whenever possible people you do *not* already know well. Seriously on a wiki a through read of someone contributions can tell you most all the things you would learn from a solid acquaintance.

I truly believe if there is not a effort made to keep everything as open as possible now, there will be when the chapters come into thier own. So I am not too concerned. Although it would be better from a practical standpoint, if the middle ground could be found now.

Birgitte SB

--------

"I have never seen the WMF foundation asking the communities for anything besides money and trust. I believe the communities have much more to offer. "

You probably have limited memory. I remember explicitely calling loudly for help for many topics and various skills. Hell, I remember distinctly I called *you* Birgitte to help for setting up decent rules for new languages creation. Hardly a month ago. On this list. After I asked you help, you basically answered "errr, not now. Sorry ".

I also remember distinctly I called for help many times for Quarto. We got a certain amount of help, but not sufficient to handle things. So, Quarto was closed. It was closed because, *YOU* the community, failed to answer calls for help.

In the past month, I have taking care of answering all the questions on OTRS which were business related. Most of them, I can not answer alone. I need help. I need help to answer stuff about mobile phone. I need help to answer proposal related to trademarks use ...

We received a proposition from a big firm that I will not cite here. This was a little bit discussed amongst the community volunteers lawyers. For the past three weeks, I have been asking for a contract for that deal. I got none. None, none, none. It is not exactly as if I asked not for help. I did, but got nothing. (And this is why we need hiring.... believe me, if someone were writing these contracts on a volunteer basis, we would not need to hire people).

So, claiming that the Foundation never asked more to the community than money and trust is worse that *false*. That's an *insult*.

There is something hugely upsetting in the comments I read in this thread. It is seeing people complain things are not publicly discussed... but who do not even comments when the issues are raised publicly. It is seeing people complain things are not done... but they do not do things themselves. It is seeing people complain we do not welcome their help... but they say no when we ask them.

I am not gonna blame you because you refuse to help me on something. That's fine. You're a volunteer. But do not try to pretend we do not ask for help please. That's dishonnest.

Ant

On 6/1/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:

...

"I have never seen the WMF foundation asking the communities for anything besides money and trust. I believe the communities have much more to offer. "

You probably have limited memory. I remember explicitely calling loudly for help for many topics and various skills. Hell, I remember distinctly I called *you* Birgitte to help for setting up decent rules for new languages creation. Hardly a month ago. On this list. After I asked you help, you basically answered "errr, not now. Sorry ".

Yes you did. I was more thinking of asking across projects not just asking people who already are in contact with the mailing list. A site-wide note similar to fundraising, but a call for volunteers. With a page asking for people with specific skills sets or experience. To bring in people who have not already sought out the Foundation themselves

[snip]

I am very sorry my email upset you. I do not mean to imply in any way that I felt my help was unwelcome, or that my help was not asked for. I was really not talking about me or any one who's name you might recognize from this list. I meant a direct appeal to all the people out there who do not know what the Foundation is doing much less what it needs doing. I meant recruiting from the untapped reasource of people who use thes projects. Recruiting. Not asking people who have already show interest.

I am do not mean this to be taken so critically. Trully it is impressive what so few people have accomplished here. And also did not mean that I thought no one should be hired. Just that hiring professionals is not a panacea. It will take a very special sort of professional to work in this enviroment. I really want to see a middle ground. I am not against things being closed either. It is just a matter of degrees.

Birgitte SB

Yes, if I may just chip in at this point, I think that your point was taken unfairly, Birgitte. I agree with you that we need to better seek out and recognise the talent/initiative we have within the community, and use this as best we can for the furthering of our goals, which we are achieving through the organisational front of the Wikimedia Foundation (including its chapters and committees). Obviously, we have achieved so much, as individuals contributing to our projects of passion, but many of us do other work besides all this - writing grant proposals, answering OTRS mails, evaluating and answering proposals from external businesses/charities, addressing legal concerns/threats, organising conferences - to name just a few activities that are going on. These are jobs that are being done by *community* members, who have volunteered themselves or themselves been volunteered by other people ;-). Essentially, my point (echoing Anthere's) is that some of the people who complain that the organisation is moving on without them, either haven't bothered to get involved (yet), or don't know how. Possibly we need to have something like a page on Meta which outlines what our talents/expertise/interests are, so that, when the need arises, they can be called on to help out? Dunno, maybe somewhere like: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_volunteers (?)

Cormac

On 6/1/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

There is something hugely upsetting in the comments I read in this thread. It is seeing people complain things are not publicly discussed... but who do not even comments when the issues are raised publicly. It is seeing people complain things are not done... but they do not do things themselves. It is seeing people complain we do not welcome their help... but they say no when we ask them.

Well, my perspective on the above comments:

I complain about the Foundation to many people. I don't do anything about it because the structure of the Foundation is such that I am disenfranchised from actually having any influence other than through backchannel politicking. The bylaws of the Foundation concentrate all power in the Board, and further structured so that a majority of Board members are not responsible to anyone but themselves. This structure makes the Board inherently resistant to change. I am not sanguine that the Board will ever even recognize all of the problems that exist right now, let alone come up with a useful solution. So I complain to my friends and associates, and try to convince them to agree with me (that the Board is going about the business of running the Foundation in the wrong way) with the vague hopes of eventually convincing enough of the Board members to put their personal interests behind their fiduciary duty to the Foundation and, for once, start making decisions that reflect what is best for the Foundation instead of what is best for that individual Board member. (No, I shall not name names. If you are on the Board, it's up to you to decide whether I'm talking about you or not.)

As to being asked to help: The only representatives of the Foundation who have ever asked me to help are Danny Wool and Brad Patrick. (Well, except for when Jimbo asked me to serve on the enwiki ArbCom, but he was doing that as Jimbo, not as CEO of the Board.) Even when I told people that I was ready and willing to help, I never got requested to do anything. So I've concluded that WMF doesn't really want my help. Either this is because the WMF has concluded that my talents are of no use to it, or because the WMF has ignored me when I've offered to help.

So, yes, you may be asking for help, but frankly I find it hard to figure out what help you need or who to talk to about it -- and besides, your volunteer coordinators should be working to match volunteers with tasks that need doing, instead of making volunteers hunt around to find something to do that fits their talents. But then again, that's yet another one of the myriad defects of the WMF: the Foundation appears to have no clue how to manage volunteers, either. (Does WMF even have a volunteer coordinator?)

I imagine I'll anger more than a few people with this email. I hope so; maybe out of that anger will come the desire for change (instead of the desire to kill the messenger, which I fear is more likely to be the result).

With regards,

Kelly

Anthere schrieb:

10. Business development : I need someone to help figuring out how much

are trademarks are worth. Example : if we make a dvd, how much to ask per item. If we make a board game : how much to ask per item.

The Wikimedia trademarks won't be worth a damn in the near future because the Wikimedia Foundation does nothing to prevent them from becoming generics.

No offense meant to you, you've done your best.

greetings, elian

PS: second enquiry: Has anything been done about http://onepiece.elwiki.com/index.php/Main_Page and the [http://www.elwiki.com/gallery.php rest]?

PPS: Wikimedia Deutschland got 1 Euro per sold DVD, to answer your question.

On 6/1/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

Right. I have one job for you. I forwarded on checkuser list yesterday an email of someone complaining of misuse of checkuser on fi. I do not have the time to study the case. You are in charge of exploring the issue, clarify if there was blantant abuse (in this case, please ask us to remove the status) or mostly ignorance (in that case, please inform the checkuser). Do you accept the job ?

I'll look into it. Note that I lack much insight into fi policy or events, and as I cannot read Finnish, cannot examine their project pages to meaningfully determine if CheckUser was used inappropriately there. To whom may I refer questions of that nature?

If you ever have anything else of this or any other nature which you think I might be able to help with, please feel free to email me *directly* (or chat with me on IRC). I do not reliably read the public mailing lists; the signal-to-noise ratio is too low on the public lists and my free time too limited. I guarantee that any mail addressed directly to me will be read within 24 hours unless I am ill or traveling.

Interesting question. Is the job of a board member

1. define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run
2. manage everyday operations of the organisation
3. focus on human management of volunteers

According to books, it is 1. According to reality, it is 2. According to wishes, is it 3 ?

The proper duty of the board is to steer the organization, that is, item 1 above. Item 2 should be handled by the paid professional staff of the foundation, but the Board has been reluctant to date to hire paid professional staff, and so has to do those items in lieu of having them done by that staff. This is one of the major mistakes that the Board has made to date, and until they correct it they will forever be struggling to deal with matters they should not have to deal with anyway. Item 3 falls within the scope of "managing everyday operations" and should also be handled either by paid professional staff or a volunteer selected by and managed by the paid professional staff.

I have no intention of suggesting that the Board should be doing more than it is doing.

Let me see... I need

1. someone with good knowledge of cell phones to help us figure what we

could do with wikipedia and cell phone (technical description). Able to answer all emails on OTRS of cell-phone people proposing various partnership.

Not an area I know much about.

2. Someone with good graphical skills to improve the look of a CD for

kids 7-13. And make the external jacket. Speaking french will be a bonus.

My graphics arts skills are about as good as my French.

3. Someone to clean up and rearrange all pages on meta related to the

Foundation. Good english skills required as well as knowledge of the Foundation structure

I find the current structure confusing (at least once one gets beyond the Board itself), and freely admit that I do not understand it. On the other hand, my English skills are reasonably good.

4. Someone to update various pages on the foundation website. To check

the discrepancies between the english version and the other languages version. To contact the various editors responsiable of this version to tell them about the discrepancies. Require : access to WMF site and good communication skills.

I lack the requisite access to the Foundation site, and being monolingual cannot help much with reconciliations of translations.

5. A baby-sitter at Wikimania for my baby. Skills : knowledge of kids.

Plump preferred. Male, female, trans welcome. Date and location : early august in Boston.

If I go to Wikimania at all, I suspect I will be going to attend events and actually try to accomplish something productive. And if I wanted to watch a child while doing this, it would be my own. Sorry.

6. A lawyer or legal counselling to fix broken contracts received on

OTRS. Skills required : patience and availability.

Not a lawyer (althougb not legally clueless), nor do I understand what you mean by "fixing broken contracts received on OTRS".

7. Checkuser issue : it seems the privacy policy, the checkuser policy

are not making everyone happy. I am looking for someone to review both and make new proposals. Additional jobs : doing stats of useage. Asking Brion to add a system to allow easier consulting. Skills : tough skin.

Please write me privately about this.

8. OTRS assistant : job, improve the spam filter. OR, clean up the board

queue.

I have no access to the board queue, although I've been working OTRS for several months now. The spam filter is a technical issue that I don't know much about (the spam filter I use at work is a commercial product sold by Sophos and I don't know much about how it works, just how to make it work, and I'm not knowledgeable of the solution being used now). I freely admit that my open-source technical skills are rusty.

9. Fundraising assistant : someone to help Mav to write a resolution

allowing the creation of that committee. Then, help to make a GREAT fundraising before summer. Skills : being creative with good communication ability. Urgent job.

Not an area I'm good at.

10. Business development : I need someone to help figuring out how much

are trademarks are worth. Example : if we make a dvd, how much to ask per item. If we make a board game : how much to ask per item.

I have past experience in this area. Write me privately.

11. Also in business development. I need someone to collect the names

and addresses of all mirrors (in all languages) and to contact them one by one to propose them a live feed; Will require to contact translators to fix languages templates. Should get a tech description from Brion. Skills and various : should have tech knowledge and OTRS access. Multilingual preferred.

Write me privately about this one, too.

Kelly

Traroth wrote:

----- Message d'origine ---- De : Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com À : foundation-l@wikimedia.org Envoyé le : Vendredi, 2 Juin 2006, 3h27mn 12s Objet : [Foundation-l] jobs

...

Interesting question. Is the job of a board member

1. define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run
2. manage everyday operations of the organisation
3. focus on human management of volunteers ?

...

According to books, it is 1. According to reality, it is 2. According to wishes, is it 3 ?

Actually, according to point 1, the Board should find a solution for point 2 and also for point 3. What else could mean "define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run", if it doesn't begin with solutions for all day problems ?

True.

For that matter, a job description for hiring a CEO was recently drafted. It seems the board agrees on the job description. We are currently voting to approve or not a candidate.

Here is the job description (it may have some imperfections, but overall, it seems to be pretty much what we need).

Position summary of CEO The chief executive is responsible for the overall administration and management of WMF, including service programs, fundraising, and business operations. Areas of responsibility include assisting and working closely with the board on planning and evaluation, operational policy development and administration, personnel and fiscal management, and public relations. This is a full-time position, hired by and directly accountable to the board of directors through its elected board chair.

Responsibilities Management and administration *Develop and facilitate an active planning process. *Develop organizational goals and objectives consistent with the mission and vision of WMF, as defined by the board of directors *Develop and administer operational policies. *Oversee WMF infrastructure services and public relations activities, to ensure WMF objectives are met. *Oversee business development. *Ensure compliance with funding sources and regulatory requirements. *Provide information for evaluation of the organization's activities.

Fiscal *Develop, recommend, and monitor annual and other budgets, in consultation with the appropriately constituted budget committees, CFO, Treasurer. *Ensure effective audit trails with the constituted audit committee *Approve expenditures consistent with board-approved policies *Provide for proper fiscal record-keeping and reporting. *Submit monthly financial statements to the board of directors. *Prepare and submit grant applications and funding proposals as appropriate, in consultation with the Grants Officer and special project committee

Personnel *Administer board-approved personnel policies. *Ensure proper (legal) hiring and termination procedures. *Oversee all personal disciplinary actions. *Provide for adequate supervision and evaluation of WMF staff and WMF volunteers

Board relations *Assist the board chair in planning the agenda and materials for board meetings. *Initiate and assist in developing policy recommendations and in setting priorities. *Facilitate the orientation of new board members. *Work with the board to raise funds *Staff board committees as appropriate.

Public relations *Assist the communication committee in public relations activities, to ensure WMF objectives are met. *Ensure appropriate representation of WMF by all employees. *Coordinate representation of WMF to legislative bodies and other groups.

On Fri, June 2, 2006 13:16, Anthere wrote:

For that matter, a job description for hiring a CEO was recently drafted. It seems the board agrees on the job description. We are currently voting to approve or not a candidate.

I've read Angela's response, and I'll cover the matter of the JobSpec in another mail as it is clearly very imperfect, but I am very shocked and saddened at that last sentence there.

For any charitable foundation which expects and *needs* to retain the freely-donated level of work of its volunteers to engage a COO (as that is what the description is far closer too rather than a CEO - see next mail!) without (a) advertising the position to its membership and generally, (b) publicising the shortlisted candidates under consideration in some manner, and (c) having an open recruitment process throughout, would seem to be very contrary to good corporate governance.

I do hope that this is an error, or an extremely *temporary* measure whilst a proper and effective process is put in place, though imho there should be no need to rush to an interim appointment given the survival so far and that a fit and proper appointment could be made within 2-3 months anyway.

Alison Wheeler

Lord Voldemort wrote:

On 6/2/06, Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com wrote:

...

For any charitable foundation which expects and *needs* to retain the freely-donated level of work of its volunteers to engage a COO (as that is what the description is far closer too rather than a CEO - see next mail!) without (a) advertising the position to its membership and generally, (b) publicising the shortlisted candidates under consideration in some manner, and (c) having an open recruitment process throughout, would seem to be very contrary to good corporate governance.

Why would a shortlist need to be publicised? Do you mean actually listing the names of the candidates, or simply stating that "there is a short list of candidates"? I am not sure posting the names of those "still in the running" is that common a practice. Or are you referring to more publicity within the higher-ups of the Foundation?

As much as I support a more open process, there is a serious privacy issue connected with publicizing the names of any candidates, including those on a short list. Only one (if any) is likely to get the job. The publicity could have an impact on the futre prospects of unsuccessful candidates.

Ec

Jimmy Wales wrote:

Alison Wheeler wrote:

...

I do hope that this is an error, or an extremely *temporary* measure whilst a proper and effective process is put in place, though imho there should be no need to rush to an interim appointment given the survival so far and that a fit and proper appointment could be made within 2-3 months anyway.

Well, the idea here is to have someone in the role right away because an enormous amount of work needs doing right away, and that we will work toward a "proper and effective" process for an appointment into the future.

We need help, and we need it now. :) And one of the roles of the interim ED will be to help drive forward the process.

That sounds like it was taken directly from the Manual of the Panic School of Mangement. ;-)

Ec

Ray Saintonge wrote:

Anthere wrote:

...

Kelly Martin wrote:

...

On 6/1/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

...

There is something hugely upsetting in the comments I read in this thread. It is seeing people complain things are not publicly discussed... but who do not even comments when the issues are raised publicly. It is seeing people complain things are not done... but they do not do things themselves. It is seeing people complain we do not welcome their help... but they say no when we ask them.

Well, my perspective on the above comments:

I complain about the Foundation to many people. I don't do anything about it because the structure of the Foundation is such that I am disenfranchised from actually having any influence other than through backchannel politicking. The bylaws of the Foundation concentrate all power in the Board, and further structured so that a majority of Board members are not responsible to anyone but themselves. This structure makes the Board inherently resistant to change. I am not sanguine that the Board will ever even recognize all of the problems that exist right now, let alone come up with a useful solution.

it is the second time I see you using that expression. What does that mean "I am not sanguine" ? except for not being an orange which is probably true ?

"Sanguine" in English as in French draws its origins from the French "sang". It can be applied to many things with a characteristic blood red colouring including varieties of oranges and pears, and hematite drawing crayons. When applied to persons the subject gets interesting. While it is clearly related to people who are red in the face, or often in relation to large people who have many broken small blood vessels in their cheeks. English and French physiognomists interpreted the associated temperaments quite differently. For the English it represents cheerful optimism, and a hopeful and even naïve belief that everything will be all right. For the French a sanguine person was seen as someone with a quick temper (un coléreux), unless you were from that other school of thought that saw them as possessing a calm practical sense of things.

That clarifies !!! As for me, it means something with a quick temper. So, I could really not make sense of Karynn use. Thanks Ec (it really helps to be between two languages :-))

...

...

So, yes, you may be asking for help, but frankly I find it hard to figure out what help you need or who to talk to about it -- and besides, your volunteer coordinators should be working to match volunteers with tasks that need doing, instead of making volunteers hunt around to find something to do that fits their talents. But then again, that's yet another one of the myriad defects of the WMF: the Foundation appears to have no clue how to manage volunteers, either. (Does WMF even have a volunteer coordinator?)

Interesting question. Is the job of a board member

1. define the strategy of the Foundation in the long run
2. manage everyday operations of the organisation
3. focus on human management of volunteers ?

According to books, it is 1. According to reality, it is 2. According to wishes, is it 3 ?

I would rephrase that slightly to refer to the job of the Board as a whole rather than individual members. The first is clearly the most important job of the Board. It should set broad guidelines for the second, without getting involved in micro-management. If you trust someone enough to put him in a position you need to trust him enough to let him get on with the job. The human management of volunteers is a very special skill which could be handled at the highest level by the right board member, but not necessarily.

...

Let me see... I need

...

The length of your list alone says a lot about the needs that have developed. We may very well have volunteers who _can_ do these jobs, but how much can you fairly expect of them?

Ec

I am a volunteer who _can_ do the job of a board member, but how much can you fairly expect of me ?

Ant

PS : I will hire a nanny ;-)

Jimmy Wales wrote:

Recently I heard about a big argument in the German Wikipedia about the Verein... and honestly it sounded to me like the same story all over again. People who are very good volunteers but who prefer, for good reasons, to spend their time editing, may not always properly appreciate the work of other volunteers who become more involved in organizational work.

Part of the problem from my perspective is that it feels like you need to make the transition to meta-level time committment to have any say in how things are run. But even keeping up with the public mailing lists is a significant time commitment---I'm the most "meta-involved" by far of the Wikipedians I know in real life, and I'm only moderately involved compared to many folks. I don't think that people who prefer to spend most of their time editing the encyclopedia, developing its policies, resolving article, disputes, etc.---the people intimately familiar with the workings of our main reason for being here---should be cut off from knowledge of and a say in what's going on at "higher levels". Important issues should be announced ahead of time to the community at large; comments should be solicited and taken into account before final decisions are made; and in very important cases even referendum-type votes (or at least straw polls) should be taken.

At the very least things should be routinely discussed on the publicly-accessible mailing lists, and ideally important things should be announced on the relevant wikis (i.e. Village-Pump type places) early enough to give non-mailing-list folk a chance to weigh in.

In short: Most people have neither the time nor inclination to get involved in meta-level activities that require a time committment. This is particularly true of some of the types of people I think we'd like to have more of, like professors. So if the Foundation is to represent a movement that includes those people, they need to continually be kept in the loop and repeatedly brought back into the debate. A professor who edits Wikipedia in his spare time is probably not going to also read a dozen mailing lists, show up to IRC meetings, and volunteer to serve on committees, but could still be kept in the loop.

-Mark

On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

I agree completely. But when we post everything we can publicly, have open meetings, have community committees, and then people don't read it, well, I don't agree that this is "being cut off".

A list of resolutions which have passed, in most cases without vote counts or any other information, with pending resolutions not even put into the view for months, is not "everything you can publicly".

In fact, I asked your CFO over a year ago for a copy of the latest 990, which is by law publically available and the IRS recommends for it to be posted on the foundation's website. I have received nothing other than the very first 990-EZ which has finally arrived on the Guidestar website. You haven't posted everything you can publicly. Not even close.

You, Jimmy, are the one who is trolling.

Anthony

By the way, you still haven't answered who made the proposal to install you as President.

Jimmy Wales wrote:

Anthony DiPierro wrote:

...

By the way, you still haven't answered who made the proposal to install you as President.

I explained it fully. The resolution was proposed when it seemed that we might need something simple to show the German courts. When that became unnecessary, we never bothered to complete it.

I would not even call it a "proposal". It was in the drafting stages. I do not remember now who wrote what was there... possibly it was me.

--Jimbo

I confirm. It was you.

Ant

On 6/4/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

Anthony DiPierro wrote:

...

On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

...

I agree completely. But when we post everything we can publicly, have open meetings, have community committees, and then people don't read it, well, I don't agree that this is "being cut off".

A list of resolutions which have passed, in most cases without vote counts or any other information, with pending resolutions not even put into the view for months, is not "everything you can publicly".

In fact, I asked your CFO over a year ago for a copy of the latest 990, which is by law publically available and the IRS recommends for it to be posted on the foundation's website. I have received nothing other than the very first 990-EZ which has finally arrived on the Guidestar website. You haven't posted everything you can publicly. Not even close.

Not the CFO fault :-)

I know. The CFO told me he didn't even have the document yet, even though it had already been filed. Looking up the dates, the fiscal year ended June 30, 2004, the 990-EZ was originally due on November 15, 2004, assuming two extensions were granted it was then due by May 15, 2005, it's dated April 1, 2005 (ha), it was stamped as received by the IRS on June 28, 2005, the CFO still didn't have a copy of it on August 6, 2005, and on June 6, 2006 the document still isn't posted anywhere on the foundation website (though it is now available through Guidestar).

Our fiscal year run from june to june. The Foundation was created in 2003, but I am not sure the 990 2003 would make much sense to you. I never saw it myself, though I was told my name appeared on it.

Your name and what seems to be your address.

On or about January 6, 2006 I found a copy on the Guidestar website. I uploaded it to Wikimedia commons, and Delphine Ménard deleted it. There was talk at that point about blacking out the officer addresses "and SSNs" (which I put in quotes because the document on Guidestar doesn't have any SSNs in it; it contains the EIN of the organization which is public knowledge and can be found on Florida's corporate information site) and uploading it to the foundation site. This was supposedly taken to the internal mailing list.

The 990 of 2004 was only recently sent. It actually contains some errors which should be fixed soon. Since it is a public document, I suppose we can put it on Foundation website once fixed? Or add a link if it is available somewhere on the web ? Will check that. As for the 990 2005, it is too early for it to exist.

Ant

I certainly would like a copy, and I'd rather not wait for Guidestar to get around to scanning it in first. Additionally, if the organization is at all interested in transparency posting a copy of the latest 990s on the foundation website would be the appropriate response.

Anthony

On 6/4/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

Anthony DiPierro wrote:

...

On or about January 6, 2006 I found a copy on the Guidestar website. I uploaded it to Wikimedia commons, and Delphine Ménard deleted it.

Copyrighted ?

No, the reason given was "this is obsolete, and certainly not to be uploaded on Commons." http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete...

In a couple emails the rationale was given that the address was incorrect (IIRC the original foundation address was the same as Jimbo's home address), that such documents are official, and that they have no place on the commons (which is "supposed to be a media repository, not really a place for such official documents"). My response was that "I really don't care where you put it." I also said that "if someone provides me with a copy with the officer address information blacked out, I won't personally distribute the copy with the address information included. I don't personally care about the addresses." (though I did find the purchase price of Jimbo's residence mildly interesting) Anyway, I never got a copy with the address info blacked out.

...

There was talk at that point about blacking out the officer addresses "and SSNs" (which I put in quotes because the document on Guidestar doesn't have any SSNs in it; it contains the EIN of the organization which is public knowledge and can be found on Florida's corporate information site) and uploading it to the foundation site. This was supposedly taken to the internal mailing list.

I have no memory of that discussion... which does not prove it did not take place... Dunno what are SSN's and EIN...

SSNs are social security numbers, which are generally considered to be sensitive personal information. For most living people they're hard to obtain, though many CEOs of publically traded corporations had their SSN published on the SEC website (a US government organization website) up until about 1999.

EINs are employer identification numbers. They are essentially the corporation equivalent of the SSN, but they are not considered to be sensitive information. Most states, including Florida, publish the EINs of all corporations on their websites.

Anthony

On 6/1/06, Erik Zachte erikzachte@infodisiac.com wrote:

A process whereby every committee holds open, widely announced meetings and where advisor status is granted instantly without bureaucratic process was discussed, but does not seem to be practiced by any of the committees.

I don't know if anyone has pointed out to you, but the Communications Committee holds weekly IRC meetings which are open to the public and everyone is invited to participate.

These meetings are scheduled on the Meta comcom page, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee. I'm sure it was simply an oversight on your part to use grand generalizations without being certain of their veracity.

Amgine

On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

Erik Moeller wrote:

...

So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the very philosophy that made WP a success is not applicable to organizations.

And Erik wonders why I felt that he misrepresented my views in that meeting.

With all due respect, I wasn't talking about you above.

The main beef that I had with Erik in that log was that he represented to the people there, that I felt that we should not recruit for the executive director position from within the community. That was shocking to me, because I am strongly committed to our deep community roots and deep community focus.

My comments on IRC were based on your own statements, on IRC and on the mailing list. When the CEO position was discussed, I pointed out that there are qualified people in the community who can acquire some of the additional skills needed, while being able to connect to Wikimedians better than a complete outsider. I gave our current CFO, Daniel Mayer, as an example.

To this, Daniel responded:

"While it would be nice to have a Wikimedian fill this role, I don't think that is a critical thing for the board to consider." [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-January/005831.html]

Your response was: "I think that's exactly right." You then continued: "There are people out there with decades of experience with public-facing international charities with a strong community focus who can very quickly be trained in our community norms. And if they already know about Wikipedia, and have edited, then so much the better."

I think, based on these comments and some on IRC about the community/organization split, the statement of myself that: "I doubt [Jimmy] will care much for looking in the community for an [Administrative Director]" was justifiable. Certainly, I do not feel that your reaction -- to write on a public wiki page that I "deeply misrepresented" you, and "that anyone reading this should take with a huge grain of salt everything, and I mean absolutely everything, that [Erik] said" was appropriate, or an example of how members of the community should be engaged.

Even you will probably admit that you have a history of making vague, non-committal statements, and of course there are good reasons for doing so. However, vagueness opens up the potential for misinterpretation. It is hardly fair to blame this on those who are trying to make sense of your comments.

And your remarks in this thread have been exemplary for the same kind of vague, non-committal statements of reassurance. Instead of "I think we should have two more community-elected members by the end of August", you'll say something like "We continue to be deeply committed to the ideal of increasing the number of people on the Board, and whether or not these are community members is secondary to meeting our charitable goals and thoughtfully finding the most qualified people to help us do so" (made up quote). Well, what does something like this tell us? Does Jimbo want more community-elected members? Does he want to bring in someone he feels is right for the job? What's going to happen? Same with the CEO question.

Frankly, there's a need for less Jimbospeak, and more concrete promises and commitments on the public record.

I think a lot of people feel tthat the foundation is opaque because they choose to not get involve

When the SP committee was created, I immediately expressed my interest in joining. I saw the hope that this was a long needed step away from exactly the kind of centralization and micromanagement that had led me to resign as CRO (and which now seems to be generally acknowledged). I pointed out my record working on Special Projects, from many different kinds of partnerships to their technical realization.

I was told by Danny, immediately, that he would oppose me, that I had "quit Wikimedia", that the committee was "beneath me". You also told me, privately, that you did not want me on SP. Does that make me feel welcome to help? If someone who _wants_ to help, who _has_ a record, faces these barriers, how much harder is it for those who are not well known, but yet highly qualified?

GerardM, who has a more impressive track record in special projects than I do -- there would be no Kennisnet partnership and no WiktionaryZ project without him, applied for membership and was rejected. Frankly, this is not an example of an open organization that accepts the most qualified people to do the right thing. It's an example of "face by face" selection processes. No amount of rhetoric is going to change that.

I agree with you, of course, that the organization is not becoming more opaque. It is becoming bigger and involving more people, and that is good. But the potential for Wikimedia is to be so much more than just a shell for a few projects. The potential for Wikimedia is to build hundreds, thousands of partnerships, to form knowledge networks, to engineer the technology that will be needed to take free content to the next level. Quite a lot of this work _needs_ to be done within the context of the WMF, not the projects, because that is how you can engage people in the outside world. This cannot be done with the current organizational model.

InstantCommons (see [[m:InstantCommons]]) is a perfect example of that. We met with Kennisnet in February, and they basically said "Wow, good idea, let's do it! But, we would like the WMF to authorize it." Since then, the project has been in organizational limbo, moving slowly as molasses through several layers of bureaucracy, from SP to Legal to SP to Board and back again, with complex contracts being drawn up when all that needed to be done was giving them a call and letting Gerard manage the project. This is about building a relationship with a developer in Ghana, who could have started work on this project as early as March. Now it's June and we still can't go ahead. We're talking about a EUR 5000-10000 project. How on Earth do you intend to manage large grants with that kind of attitude towards project realization?

I won't even get into some of the other project ideas that are out there, promises that have been made, and so on. Suffice it to say that we are nowhere near fulfilling our potential, and that doesn't bode well for future personal appeals that make the same empty comments about Africa. These will get stale _very_ quickly if we don't demonstrate success. Sure, professionals are important in getting our act together. I consider myself a professional in what I do, which is to solve complex problems. And I want to network all of those who are professionals in something, regardless of whether we will actually end up paying them.

You say that people do not get involved enough. Well, when the committees were first proposed, I immediately wrote a long analysis of some concerns regarding their setup and future: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-January/005828.html

Response: zero. Not from the Board, not from the community. If you do not engage the community in even very basic and simple dialogue like this, and only actually start talking when - as now - a lot of people start complaining, then something is fundamentally wrong about the way we communicate.

Here's an idea: Why not ask the community to draft up resolutions on Meta? And why not start with the one about keeping the committees as open as possible?

Another question: How much does Tim Shell actually participate in any Board-level decision making, meetings, resolutions, open and private discussions? If this is not about your control, why is he still on the Board?

Erik

Anthere wrote:

Erik Moeller wrote:

...

InstantCommons (see [[m:InstantCommons]]) is a perfect example of that. We met with Kennisnet in February, and they basically said "Wow, good idea, let's do it! But, we would like the WMF to authorize it." Since then, the project has been in organizational limbo, moving slowly as molasses through several layers of bureaucracy, from SP to Legal to SP to Board and back again, with complex contracts being drawn up when all that needed to be done was giving them a call and letting Gerard manage the project. This is about building a relationship with a developer in Ghana, who could have started work on this project as early as March. Now it's June and we still can't go ahead. We're talking about a EUR 5000-10000 project. How on Earth do you intend to manage large grants with that kind of attitude towards project realization?

Ah NO. No and No.

The WMF has authorized it. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee/Resolutions#2006-2...

The authorization is from at least a month ago. And you know that Erik.

The problem now is to get the grant from Kennisnet. They have not yet agreed to provide this sum for the development of the project. You should not blame WMF for not convincing Kennisnet to support your project. This is very largely incorrect.

Anthere

Important correction : the SPC gave its go. Since the SPC does not have a delegation by the board to make the final decision on that project, the InstantCommons still needs final approval by the board to start.

Apologies.

Now, that still change nothing to the fact the issue is stuck NOT because of layers of bureaucracy in WMF.

Simply stuck because Kennisnet may not be interested in giving 5000 euros to realize that project (3000 for Paa Kwesi, 1500 for project management - Gerard and 500 for the developer who assists Paa Kwesi with developing this software on the Foundation side).

Again, you should not blame WMF for the fact Kennisnet may not be so willing to support that project as you were thinking they would.

Anthere

On 6/5/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:

On 6/5/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

...

The problem now is to get the grant from Kennisnet.

I very much doubt that given our discussions in February, but I'll be happy to call Jan-Bart to clarify things.

As was clarified by e-mail, the situation is exactly as I expected. Kennisnet is working for the WMF to complete the transaction.

Erik

Erik Moeller wrote:

On 6/5/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:

...

On 6/5/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

...

The problem now is to get the grant from Kennisnet.

I very much doubt that given our discussions in February, but I'll be happy to call Jan-Bart to clarify things.

As was clarified by e-mail, the situation is exactly as I expected. Kennisnet is working for the WMF to complete the transaction.

Erik

As was also mentionned, the spc had not been informed whether the grant was okay or not, nor of how much it was planned to be (still unclear by the way).

I'd like that you make the effort to recognise that we are acting in good faith and trying to make our best. I may also hint at the fact that we are volunteers and that volunteers can *choose* to take care of a proposal... or not. We are under no obligation to spend hours studying your proposals, and may prefer to focus on other issues of more interest to us or where people will appreciate a bit more the efforts of the team. The comments you made are not motivating in the least. You may criticize as much as you feel like, but one drawback may be that the next proposal Gerard or you make, finds nobody to take care of and is simply forwarded to the board for consideration.

Anthere

On 6/7/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

I'd like that you make the effort to recognise that we are acting in good faith

This is not about good or bad faith, Florence. Of course the SP committee is acting in good faith - I never denied this. The point is that a 5000 EUR project that was essentially OK'd by Kennisnet in February is still not ready to go by June. The point is that at this organizational efficiency, we need not even dream of realizing any real grant proposals that are brought to us from the outside. I'd like _you_ to make the effort to recognize that the organization needs to fundamentally change in the way it does things if it does want to fulfill its charitable mission.

I am very, very concerned that our promises about helping children in Africa are going to sound rather cynical when actual African projects (and InstantCommons is one) do not happen because the organization is so ineffective. _Especially_ in an all-volunteer organization, the approach which is currently taken -- a small group of people must make all the critical decisions, and new members are only recruited if there is consensus _within_ that group (_and_ ideally the Board) -- is not scalable. And it's certainly not scalable for a top 16 website with over a million registered users and hundreds, thousands of potential "special projects". Not to mention other projects besides Wikipedia which are badly in need of innovative thinking and creative partnerships. Not to mention that we're supposed to be multilingual.

I have not seen a single announcement on this mailing list for an open SP-related meeting. Most of the discussions you need to have can be open without leaving a permanent record on the web -- publish edited logs or summaries where confidential information is concerned. You can accept advisors without even voting on them. And the core voting members should be those who do the most work of actually planning, coordinating and realizing projects as this becomes visible in a larger group.

The notion that every contract has to be between the Wikimedia Foundation and another organization is also unnecessary -- contracts can be between volunteers and grant-giving organizations, if the grants are small and having the contracts managed by Wikimedia only adds unnecessary bureaucratic overhead. This way, Wikimedia adds organizational credibility for volunteers who deserve it.

This could have been done with Kennisnet in February or March. Don't be overly afraid of outcomes -- just dissociate yourself from projects which fail, and highlight those that succeed. And for Christ's sake, don't worry all the time about legal risks. Legal risks can be addressed as a project develops. Wikipedia is an insanely bad idea from a legal point of view and would never have been started through _any_ process which we are actually using in our organization to start things.

Build _many_ relationships with people you can trust, instead of building _few_ relationships with people you'd like to take out for dinner.

We are under no obligation to spend hours studying your proposals

How about you start _trusting_ me, Gerard and other volunteers when we come to the Foundation and say: "This here is a moderately cool project that these people over there are willing to pay for, but they'd like to get an OK from the Foundation." Again, I ask: Why could the SP committee not simply have sent the authorization to Kennisnet, and let the contract side of things be handled between Gerard and them? Again, not a single valid reason has been given for excluding a person like Gerard from the committee. This is not about him personally -- it's about the _process_.

You accuse me of assuming bad faith. Yet you are treating me as an outsider after 5 years of working with and around Wikipedia which has included more "special projects" than I care to mention (which pay my salary, I might add). There are large grants I am associated with which I wouldn't bring even anywhere _near_ the Foundation because of its current state. Your point above seems to be accurately summarizable as: "Erik, please be nice to us, because otherwise we'll just ignore your ideas."

Not a single part of my e-mails was personal criticism, an assumption of bad faith, or deliberately insulting. I have been very careful to focus on the issues, using InstantCommons as an example of failure. I am doing this publicly not to humiliate you but because I know from experience that otherwise I will just be silently ignored. Instead of actually trying to resolve the problems I pointed out, you posted a new thread with the upper case title "INCORRECT", accusing me of spreading false information. When the information turned out to be correct, you accuse me of not being nice. How about, instead of accusing me of something, you try to actually answer to my points above? How is the Foundation going to scale to the size of problems it faces?

I would be very happy to serve with you on SP and to work with you to reorganize it in such a fashion that it can handle grants and projects efficiently and effectively. The question is, do you acknowledge the problems there are, and do you want my help to solve them? Or are you hoping to pull a miracle CEO out of your hat who will solve global hunger?

Kennisnet is just one random (if important) organization from the Netherlands we happen to have a good working relationship with. There are thousands of Kennisnets out there, thousands of organizations and companies and institutions who would be happy to support us in a myriad different ways. Heck, some of them have already sent the Foundation product samples.

I have no doubt that the SP committee will initiate a dozen or half dozen projects from within its own ranks in the coming months. However, Wikimedia's ambition is not "to start a dozen or half dozen interesting projects". Wikimedia's ambition is:

"Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." http://wikimediafoundation.org/

The first version of this statement was drafted by Jimmy and me at the WOS 2004. I would say it's about time we get serious about it, or drop the rhetoric. Wikimedia is turning into a "who likes who" club rather than an organization centered around goals, objectives, and qualifications. Jimmy says he doesn't want the organization to be run like a college club. Then it's time to get rid of the bullshit politics. Get Gerard and me on SP. Let us identify other people who can help. Allow us to bring our existing collaborations into the WMF. And let's broaden and open up the organization in ways which will amaze us all.

This is not about "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" philosophy, about applying wiki ideology to areas where there are "tried and tested" ways of doing things which are preferable. This is about learning from great thinkers like Douglas Engelbart, Ted Nelson, Howard Rheingold, Frederic Vester, and Tim Berners-Lee. This is about running Wikimedia in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics: only open systems are survivable. The last thing our planet needs is more politics and more bureaucracy. What it does need is smart people collaborating, building global networks, and overlooking their personal differences, before our civilization collapses under its own weight.

Erik

Birgitte,

I don't think you see my point, which isn't about InstantCommons at all, but about guaranteeing the level of efficiency needed to deal with the huge number of potential partnerships that Wikimedia could and should establish. And an executive is not going to be the answer to do that. InstantCommons is only an example of a deep structural failure which continues to this day.

I cannot agree with you on this point. Contracts must be with the Foundation if they want the WMF's name attached to it.

They don't care about whose name is attached to the contract. They care that WMF wants this to go ahead. Many organizations will be the same way: "Oh, Wikimedia wants 5000 EUR for this project? Sure, we'll help! Oh, you want us to deal with these guys over there to keep the overhead low? Sure, can do!" We can and should define a size of contract where things cannot be handled this way anymore, of course.

Erik

On 6/8/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

I will never allow you to use the Wikimedia Foundation name to raise money for a project with no written proposal, no budget, no professionalism, just "trust us, it's a cool idea".

I wrote specifications, a budget and a full proposal for Kennisnet in February. This proposal named the developers, the roles and responsibilities, and the duration of development. The proposal, as written in February, is at http://scireview.de/temp/instantcommons_2.odt

Kennisnet was ready to approve the project as such if Wikimedia was happy with it.I believe SP has received the same document. Let me know if that is not the case.

Since then, the only major thing that has happened from my point of view is that I answered to some questions that came from SP (via Legal). For the most part, there was nothing in there that could not have been worked out as the project moves along -- see my response from April: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/spcommittee-l/2006-April/000078.html

Erik

On 6/8/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:

I have some questions from a technical perspective.

Before I answer these, let me ask if you agree with this being a reasonable idea in general. If it is, then for me it means that technical details should be worked out by technical people as the project moves along. Kennisnet actually told us that the proposal was more technically detailed than it needs to be in order to be funded.

1. What is the purpose of the XML-RPC subsystem? Since the images

are fetched via HTTP in any case, why not simply perform the existence test via simple HTTP as well. If that were done no modifications would be needed on the commons side.

There are future queries where the subsystem would come in handy, such as: show me the available, pre-rendered thumbnails, a list of conversion services, etc. Some of these are mentioned in the specs.

2. It would appear from the specification that their is no facility

for caching failures.

Sure, the system should cache non-existence, but given that we anticipate fairly low usage to begin with, and given that the process of adding and reviewing an image is interactive, I do not anticipate any major load resulting from putting that feature into a future version of MW even without such caching. MW has several caching mechanisms that would kick in anyway for pages that have already been viewed before. If it does cause problems, we can deactivate the Commons service entirely until the feature is improved.

3. The proposed method of interwiki transclusion doesn't appear fully

formed enough to determine if it will be sufficiently strong to prevent instant commons from accidentally becoming an automated system for license violations. In particular there doesn't appear to be any strong assurance that attribution and license data will *always* be available when the image is available.

We don't have the same assurance for Commons usage within the Wikimedia projects either, I think.

4. Although copyright concerns are mentioned, they don't seem to be

explored in depth. Commons has a huge amount of copyright violations on it today.

Then they should be deleted. InstantCommons is a manual, user-initiated process. Commons has no legal responsibility to stop users of other wikis from copying images from Commons, whether it is by means of manually downloading or uploading, or by setting their wiki up for IC and initiating an IC transfer process. The copyright cleanup script is a convenient thing we can provide, and by no means a legal necessity.

5. If the remote wiki will download the full image in all cases, what

is the purpose of burdening commons with the additional transfer and storage costs of their thumbnail generation? Yes, if that size has been used before commons will have it... but it's quite likely that other wikis will use a large number of sizes which are not used on Wikimedia sites, and even if the best case they still cost us additional bandwidth. The far side will still need to perform thumbnailing for the image page for large images in any case.

It's a service which we can choose to provide - for some wikis, for some file formats, etc. This is a policy choice for Wikimedia to make.

6. How will this address SVGs which are widely used on commons, but

not supported by mediawiki out of the box? Our support for SVGs requires a modifyed version of librsvg in order to operate securely.

The first iteration of IC could support SVG the same way it is supported today: If your local wiki doesn't have a backend rendering library, you can still upload them (locally or through IC), but you can't view them as rendered PNGs and scaled thumbnails. Future iterations could support SVGs through some XML-RPC based query/response mechanism for the PNGs, if Wikimedia wants to provide that service.

There are also some more complex issues, like where the $5,000 EUR fee comes from for what is, overall, such a simple feature set. But I don't want to create a flood of comments initially.

The feature set is reasonably simple. Do keep in mind that for a feature to be developed and for it to be "Brion-ready" generally takes some more time spent with testing, debugging, security review, etc. The developer is ready to use any surplus time for the purpose of developing Wikipedia content in one of the native languages of Ghana; Kennisnet was happy with that. Also keep in mind that this is his first MediaWiki project, so he'll need some tutoring from a skilled developer, which should be paid for.

Erik

On 6/8/06, Daniel Arnold arnomane@gmx.de wrote:

FYI: Wikimedia Commons has already such a thing. We made our license/maintenance templates machine understandable (not just readable :p) and any script can make use of it.

IC could certainly filter any images with templates from: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Problem_tags

Erik

Gregory,

this is great fun and all, but you know, there's really no point in now discussing the fine points of InstantCommons with everyone who has an opinion on it. The specs were announced and RfC'd, the project was approved, it has funding. Now that it's politically convenient to criticize the project you can try to find faults with it however much you like. The point is, it has already undergone the necessary processes and met the requirements.

My whole argument is that the bureaucracy of Wikimedia cannot even handle small projects (and you argue that it's even smaller than we say). If we have the same process - including the free-for-all now - for larger projects, then Wikimedia is an entirely dysfunctional organization when it comes to managing such projects. When "the power of collaboration and openness" becomes "the power of many people to prevent things from happening", nothing will ever happen.

I will just reply briefly below:

What is the purpose of having conversion services?

From my point of view: Offering such services to free content wikis --

and holding shared fundraising drives -- would be a great thing. Again, this is for Wikimedia to figure out, however.

What was the point of including technical detail in the proposal when it was so poorly considered that we're left saying "Well, we can turn it off until it's improved"?

Read the response above -- I disagree that it was poorly technically considered. But if Brion wanted some failure caching mechanism before turning it on, then of course we would implement that. Having some buffer in the development funding helps here.

What happens when the commons image is deleted but the remote wiki's retain the image?

The same that happens when the Commons images about orthodox churches I pointed out to you are deleted, and the remote wikis retain the image. It's their responsibility, not ours. As for the licensing information, it is cached locally.

Fortunately this is fairly easy to resolve. Carry a copy of the image page with it. A system without such a feature could probably not be accepted for use with Wikis outside of the foundation.

See specs: "The description page will use the existing functionality to load metadata from Commons using interwiki transclusion; however, a new caching table will be created and used in order to store and retrieve the returned HTML description once it has been first downloaded."

We know commons frequently has content which we can not legally distribute, but we're able to address it almost completely. Instant commons as proposed will create a situation where we frequently can not address it.

This situation already exists. You just fail to recognize it as such.

I think it's a little disingenuous to call it a 'manual process'. Downloading an image from commons and uploading it to the local wiki is a manual process. It gives an opportunity for someone to evaluate the sanity of the copyright claims.

And as my cited example shows, that makes the situation much worse.

5K EUR is almost two man months at the rates we pay our developers. If this feature as outlined will take more than a weeks time, complete with debugging and the creation of a test suite then I suspect we have over designed it, that we are paying too much, or both.

You think? I may have a few 1.25K projects for you then.

Erik

On 6/8/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

We have never seen a detailed budget (though we asked).

How detailed do you want it to be? You received the roles and individual budgets, for a 5K project. For a medium to large grant proposal, a single row in a table is typically of that size.

We have not received a timeline (despite repeated requests)

The timeline from the begin of development to the feature being reviewed by Brion, as stated, is 4 weeks. We can now play bait and switch for the next few days, with you stating new requirements, or technical people coming in and asking for assurances. The point is, this is a tiny project to which there have been no principal objections. Funding is there, a skilled developer in Africa is there. It should be underway already.

The proposal, as

...

written in February, is at http://scireview.de/temp/instantcommons_2.odt

... I can not read .odt... (shame...)

Append .pdf instead of .odt to the URL above.

Erik

Birgitte SB wrote:

I cannot agree with you on this point. Contracts must be with the Foundation if they want the WMF's name attached to it. If Kenniset was willing to give the money to anyone willing to make it happen (Wikimedia or otherwise), I imagine you would have already worked it out.

Kennisnet contacted me at the time, and I recommended that they not fund it until a proper proposal was in place. I would repeat that recommendation today, under the same circumstances, and for the same reasons.

With regards to the rest of you email. The Board is going to hire an interim executive director. Hopefully it will be soon. This shows me that the Board is addressing your corncerns about their efficiency.

In this particular case, the lack of efficiency was not from the WMF board. We were presented with no proper proposal but instead a set of very insistent demands that we tell Kennisnet "yes" within a day or two, to a project which had not been explained, with a budget which was not explained, etc.

I make no apologies for saying no to that kind of nonsense, whether from Erik or Gerard or anyone else, no matter how much I may like and trust them.

--Jimbo

De : Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com

I may also hint at the fact that we are volunteers and that volunteers can *choose* to take care of a proposal... or not. We are under no obligation to spend hours studying your proposals, and may prefer to focus on other issues of more interest to us or where people will appreciate a bit more the efforts of the team. The comments you made are not motivating in the least.

Anthere

I completly disagree with this point. You are part of the Board. That's an engagement. Things are made so the agreement of the Board is needed for some decisions. It's unfair to say that the Board has the choice to *not decide* because the members don't care. Such a sentence could be demotivating for the whole project members : why try to organize something, if the Board take no decision about, not because the project is not good, but only because they don't care ?

Traroth

Traroth wrote:

I completly disagree with this point. You are part of the Board. That's an engagement. Things are made so the agreement of the Board is needed for some decisions. It's unfair to say that the Board has the choice to *not decide* because the members don't care. Such a sentence could be demotivating for the whole project members : why try to organize something, if the Board take no decision about, not because the project is not good, but only because they don't care ?

I believe you have misunderstood her point. In order for the board, or anyone, to be able to look at something and make a decision, it has to be presented coherently and professionally, not as a rambling series of emails coupled with demands that we support it. Our time is limited, and not every proposal that comes to us is equally coherent.

On 6/5/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:

Erik Moeller wrote:

...

GerardM, who has a more impressive track record in special projects than I do -- there would be no Kennisnet partnership and no WiktionaryZ project without him, applied for membership and was rejected. Frankly, this is not an example of an open organization that accepts the most qualified people to do the right thing. It's an example of "face by face" selection processes. No amount of rhetoric is going to change that.

Hoi, The fact that I am not in the Special Projects committee is in a way a mixed blessing. It is a blessing in that it gives me more time to nurture the WiktionaryZ project, develop related ideas and make connections with people and organisations that share similar goals.

It is sad because it means that I have less opportunity to make the WMF aware of what is happening with the WiktionaryZ project. I am grateful for the core people in WiktionaryZ, they make it possible to make it a true community project. We started with a commission and it would be easy to extend this with many people who have proven to be as worthwhile as its original members.

My interest in the Special Projects committee is that I am interested in ensuring that the projects that are dear to my heart get the attention and integration that they require. I am interested in all the wikimedia projects, it is however obvious that my work is focused on the projects that are most dear to my heart, I can appreciate why people would not like to have me in the special projects committee because they are different from what is considered the mainstream.

Then again, given that the Wikidata technology may have a great impact on Wikipedia, beneficial in my honest opinion, and given that the members of the Special Projects committee are pressed for time, it may be clear why I wanted to be in there in the first place.

All in all, there are arguments why I am not in there. Given that people are chosen by the existing committee members, it does not help argueing publicly about why someone is or is not in a committee. The one thing I am interested in is cooperation. You do not achieve it by being resentful.

Thanks, GerardM

Thanks very much for this, Gerard. I had drafted a response to this very point, but felt it was unfair on you to send it (ie. to be drawn into a discussion about why we rejected your application).

You are doing great work on your projects, WiktionaryZ and InstantCommons, which the SPC is working with you on. I hope we're doing all we can to help them progress - but I don't agree that we would be working on them any better if you were on the committee. Really, all community projects are worked on outside the committee - the SP committee simply evaluates them and, if approved, facilitates whatever needs to be done in realising them. That's what the committee exists for - simply to relieve the board of this responsibility (amongst other things).

All the best (and thanks again),

Cormac

Erik Moeller wrote:

On 6/3/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

...

Erik Moeller wrote:

...

So, Wikimedia is shaped by people who feel that the very philosophy that made WP a success is not applicable to organizations.

And Erik wonders why I felt that he misrepresented my views in that meeting.

With all due respect, I wasn't talking about you above.

Ok, I am sorry then.

And your remarks in this thread have been exemplary for the same kind of vague, non-committal statements of reassurance. Instead of "I think we should have two more community-elected members by the end of August", you'll say something like "We continue to be deeply committed to the ideal of increasing the number of people on the Board, and whether or not these are community members is secondary to meeting our charitable goals and thoughtfully finding the most qualified people to help us do so" (made up quote).

I apologize, too, that a quote of me that you made up is too vague. ;-)

Another question: How much does Tim Shell actually participate in any Board-level decision making, meetings, resolutions, open and private discussions? If this is not about your control, why is he still on the Board?

It is my expectation that Tim will be replaced by the end of this year.

Notice that such decisions are not up to me, but up to the entire board. We have been discussing board expansion, and it is a complex matter. We are not prepared to say at the moment exactly how or when it will happen. My expectation is that we will see at least one additional member from the community, and one additional member (likely from the free software / free culture world) to provide additional external oversight.

--Jimbo

Erik Moeller wrote:

These are at least two important statements to have on the record, so thanks for that, in spite of the fact that you ignored all my other points. Why "by the end of this year" and not "within the next couple of months"?

To give time in case the process takes longer than we would like. I see no reason to publicly commit to a timetable when I am not sure. Under promise, over deliver.

What is it that makes these decisions so complex and hard to take?

The composition of the board is of critical importance to insuring that our core mission and community values are respected. A healthy discussion in the community takes time. Recruitment of board members, assessing our needs, interviewing candidates, all of these things take time. A wrong decision could be disastrous, as the board is the ultimate legal authority. I make no apologies for moving cautiously and with great thought, because I think that transitioning us from a tiny club into a large organization is my highest responsibility to us all.

And when it comes to inviting an outside member, how is that member going to be chosen? Will there be a public dialogue about who the best figure is for this role, or will they simply be appointed?

It would be absolutely fine to start a public dialogue about it right now. Who do you recommend we approach?

--Jimbo

On 6/5/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:

Jimmy Wales wrote:

...

...

And when it comes to inviting an outside member, how is that member going to be chosen? Will there be a public dialogue about who the best figure is for this role, or will they simply be appointed?

It would be absolutely fine to start a public dialogue about it right now. Who do you recommend we approach?

[snip] Bruce Perens is somewhat well-known for free software advocacy, and is well-connected with tech companies if that's the sort of thing we're after.

That would certainly be interesting considering this statement he made: "I object to the GFDL license applied to the wikipedia, and believe that - because of the flaws in the license - it is unlawful to host the wikipedia on a computer running any contemporary operating system." See [[Talk:Bruce Perens]].

Personally I think all the members of the Wikimedia board should be members of the Wikimedia community. To pick an outsider for such a position makes no sense to me.

Anthony

On 6/6/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:

One person who immediately comes to mind is Achal Prabhala, an important, charismatic and brilliant international leader in the "Access to Knowledge" movement, i.e. availability of free textbooks and other learning resources, international IP law, etc. (he gave an excellent speech at Wikimania on the topic).

I met Achal when I was in South Africa, and again at Wikimania last year. If there is to be an advisory board, he should definitely be considered for that since he has a lot of very relevant experience and would seem to support our goals. I'd rather keep the actual board limited to people with experience of Wikimedia though, rather than outsiders to increase the chance the Board members are aware of the community's concerns and have some motivation to follow the wishes of the community.

Angela.

Erik Moeller wrote:

There is virtually no active pressure or demand from the actual community for openness, participatory processes and transparency within the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, there are very little. The committees which have been formed are useful, but they pick and choose their members on a case by case basis (or perhaps I should say "face by face") -- cf. GerardM's rejected membership application to the Special Projects committee. At least during the transitional phase, the amount of bureauracy is even worse than it was at the time we were ruled by the Board and the Board alone.

Eric, I believe you are incorrect in the statement above that there is no community pressure for openess, participatory processes, and transparency within the Wikimedia Foundation.

The pressure is the non participation.

Regards, lazyquasar