I have to say your cheerful enthusiasm really made my day.

Take care of that, it is a precious resource!

----- Original Message ----- From: "philippe" philippe.wiki@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 6:36 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Announcing Philippe Beaudette as the StrategyProject Facilitator

Hi everyone....

I'd like to thank Sue for the welcome to staff and say that I'm really excited to work with Eugene - I've heard so many great things about him from community members. We'll start defining the strategic planning process soon, I'm sure, and I feel quite certain that FAQs will be an early part of that. Until then, any thoughts that you have are most welcome, and I know Eugene feels the same way. I can be reached by email or on my en:Wikipedia or meta user talk pages. I'll also make an effort to be visible on IRC as well.

Best, Philippe

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philippe philippe.wiki@gmail.com

On Jul 13, 2009, at 12:59 PM, Sue Gardner wrote:

...

Hi folks,

I am delighted to announce that the Facilitator for Wikimedia's collaborative strategy development project will be Philippe Beaudette.

Many of you know Philippe, who is a trusted member of the Wikimedia volunteer community. He's a three-year member of the Board of Trustees Election Committee, a two-year trusted administrator for the English Wikipedia, and has twice been granted temporary administrator status for meta for election-related activities. He has also been a volunteer for OTRS, where he successfully resolved some particularly difficult complaints regarding biographies of living people. He also helped the Wikimedia Foundation develop the “media upload” proposal for the Ford Foundation, which resulted, a few weeks ago, in a USD 300,000 grant for a project aimed at streamlining the process for uploading media to Wikimedia Commons.

Outside Wikimedia, Philippe has a background in American electoral politics, where he has worked as Deputy Campaign Manager, Operations Manager and Technology Director on a number of state and federal campaigns, as well as for the non-profit Progressive Alliance Foundation. He has also worked as a technology consultant in the for-profit sector in the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Philippe brings a number of important skills to the Facilitator role. He is experienced facilitating discussion on wikis, mailing lists, IRC, face-to-face and using teleconferences. He has experience understanding and successfully managing complex stakeholder networks. And he has managed projects under tight timelines. Most importantly, he has a good, rich understanding of the mechanisms and systems used by Wikimedia volunteers to stage discussions, achieve consensus and make decisions.

Philippe will work from his home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and will report to Eugene Eric Kim, the strategy plan project manager. He will start July 27.

Philippe will be a terrific addition to the team; I look forward to working with him. Please join me in congratulating and welcoming him to the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation. And thanks again to Erik Moeller and Jennifer Riggs for participating in the hiring interviews.

The strategy plan team will total three people: Project Manager Eugene Eric Kim, Facilitator Philippe Beaudette, and a to-be-named Research Analyst. I hope to be in a position to announce the Research Analyst, within a few weeks.

Thanks, Sue

-- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Hi Yaroslav,

Yes, it's a good question; Philippe and I have talked about it.

In this instance I think it's okay for Philippe to remain on the committee, for a couple of reasons. 1) As you say, the election is four weeks away: practically speaking, it would be tough to find a replacement for Philippe in that time-frame. And 2) There are lots of safeguards in place to ensure fairness in the election outcome -- for example, the committee doesn't actually administer the vote: that is handled by an independent third party, Software in the Public Interest.

Philippe offered to me to resign from the election committee if I or the Board thought it was best. I personally think the benefit of him fulfilling the commitment outweighs the downside. But I know Philippe's sensitive to the issue: if people want to talk about ways to mitigate or eliminate the conflict, I'm sure he'd be happy to have that conversation :-)

Thanks, Sue

2009/7/14 Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru:

I can only welcome Philippe's appointment, my congratulations.

Since he is starting in July, and the elections are scheduled for August, I am worried that his involvement as an election committee member could be a conflict of interests?

Cheers Yaroslav

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Please allow me to "me too!" what Sue said. As she said, she and I have talked about this. I really AM sensitive to it, and fully disclosed the situation to the election committee when my hire was announced. I'm happy to work with anyone who wants to in identifying conflicts and finding ways to mitigate them. For now, though, please know that the election committee is aware of the situation and is actively monitoring it, and both Sue and I are paying a lot of attention and are willing to further discuss. If you have a specific concern, please email me, or (if you're not comfortable emailing me), I'm sure that any other member of the election committee would be happy to talk to you about it.

Philippe

Just to make it clear, I am fully satisfied by the replies by Sue and Philippe, and do not consider situation as problematic.

Sorry for the delay, my mail server was down until today.

Cheers Yaroslav

2009/7/19 Philippe Beaudette pbeaudette@wikimedia.org:

Thanks, Jaroslav -

I'm really glad (truly) that there are people like you who think through those issues of values. I want to reinforce that my offer to resign was the very first email that I sent after accepting the job. I think enough of the folks with the Really Big Brains got together and the rest, as they say, is history.

But please, please, please, continue to question. More important than getting our process right is getting our ethics right.

The extension of the time in which candidates can nominate themselves is not under the control of a third party. Something that so clearly has the potential to influence the candidate pool presents a conflict of interest. Sue's claim it would be hard to find a replacement is not credible considering the number of OTRS, Checkusers and others who have identified themselves to the foundation.

When you made the decision not th resign I doubt you could have foreseen the extension issue coming up but it does suggest that conflict of interest resignations should probably be a matter of course rather than debate or convince.

2009/7/20 Jon Harald Søby jhsoby@gmail.com:

I fail to understand how the extension of the candidacy period can pose a possible conflict of interest on Philippe's part at all. Please explain.

The board are effectively going to be his future boss's boss.

In theory as a member the election committee he is meant to make the decision on the basis of what is best for the election. Problem is he also has a clear personal interest in choosing the option that is most likely to give him the type of boss's boss he wants.