Dear Domas, Florence, Frieda, Kat and Michael, (and maybe Jimmy too)
Yesterday the Board announced a major change in the bylaws and power structure. Although I see some positive aspects in the change from my personal point of view (I have still not seen the official changes - as you might know by now, I am for balance - so until then I can't be definitive about that), let me summarize what is happening here: Without asking any feedback from the community before the decision has been made, the Board decides to convert two community seats into chapter seats (it has always been announced that Domas' and Michaels chair were intended to become community seats too) and two expert seats were added, bringing down the community share in the board from 71% to 50% or 30% (depending whether you count chapter seats as community seats) of course assuming that the expert seats will be filled too.
This is quite a huge change with a huge impact on the power structure of the Wikimedia Foundation and therefore of the Wikimedia Movement. And this has been done without asking even advice to the community or the chapters? I find this a very strange procedure for a movement as the ours, and I am for the second time in a row very much disappointed. This time by all community Board Members, who - all of them! - dit NOT contact the community or chapters for a view!
I would very much like an explanation from every board member why they have chosen not to ask the opinion of the community. Because you're not going to sell me the story that this idea was totally new on the board meeting, and that you had no time. Because this was of course already on the agenda of the meeting: "We plan to dedicate saturday to board development and governance. This will include relationships and contractual agreement between board and executive director, possible future council, next elections, professionalization of board, etc..." (quote from Florence's email announcing the coming up Board meeting)
And please don't tell me either that the only "platform" there is, the foundation-l, does not function any more. Although that statement would be true to some extent, but it would highly puzzle me why the heck you have concluded from the new layout of the board to *not* need a Volunteer Council of *any* shape any more. Why you do not even want to encourage the research after the possibilities any more... Let me quote from your FAQ: "* `What does this [The restructuring of the board, LG] mean for the 'wikicouncil?' - The "wikicouncil" and "volunteer council" were part of the board discussions about its restructure. At this stage, we have decided to not take action on the proposal to develop a Volunteer Council. (...)"
I think this restructuring of the Board only shows once more why we need a Wikicouncil. The Board itself is apperently not able to ask input herself on big decisions, and this sets a very bad precedent to the future. Apperently the Board is in need of some kind of council that is, in contrary to the few community members left in the board, able to bring through the questions to the communities. Maybe the VC would not function perfectly, but from what I am seeing now, it would at least do a much better job, because of course this is a very sad day for community involvement in the Wikimedia Movement.
So please, Domas, Florence, Frieda, Kat and Michael, (and maybe Jimmy too), let's just be fair and state your opinion. What is *your* thought about community involvement. Should community only be allowed to say something every two years? Should community only be allowed to say something afterwards (the perfect receipe for ranting, btw)? Do you think community members could be smart people who have a smart opinion about the topics you discuss? Do you think they might come up with arguments you did not think of yet?
If you think so, you should start working, in one way or another, on some kind of platform that is able to improve your attempts to contact the community on major decisions. And no, I have no ready-boiled plan for it, but I do know that there is a catalyst out there, that could come up with a nice result. That catalyst consists of a group of dedicated people, with a wide range of views, that could maybe come up with something that is actually good.
If you think this all is no longer needed, then please say so, then we know what we're up to.
I know it is not customary (unfortunately) any more that single Board members speak up. However, in this case I find it very important not to hear the Boards voice any more, but the individual's voice. Because that is highly important to be able to choose between people in elections and "chapter appointments". Is it not on a short term, then it will be in a year, but there will be a moment, and I would like to know who I am dealing with here. As I said before, I am disappointed in you, and that means that I had a better impression of you.
Regards, and looking forward to all your replies,
Lodewijk
I have not devoted much time to governance issues over the past year, so I wasn't sure at first how this latest change came to pass. The more I read and think about it, the more the pit in my stomach grows... Anthere: too horrible, but perhaps not in the way you meant.
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 6:09 AM, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Without asking any feedback from the community before the decision has been made, the Board decides to convert two community seats into ... bringing down the community share in the board from 71% to 50% or 30% (depending whether you count chapter seats as
This was indeed an extraordinary change, and not signalled in advance. The alteration of the latest two community seats into something more restricted feels wrong to me... like a committee compromise between two better alternatives. Procedurally, this wasn't even brought up in the March minutes and makes me very nervous about what else might happen without notice or consultation.
Effe notes this sets a poor precedent. It also shines a light on the elephant in the room, which we have long ignored -- our community is dissipating, our Foundation is not designed or motivated to deal with this, and yet we are distracted from finding a solution; but more about that in a moment.
Community representatives on the board are literally supposed to be that, and I don't see how they could represent us without direct input and engagement. For curiosity's sake, I would be interested to know what outside advice was solicited on the restructuring. Frankly, I haven't felt 'represented' since the Board stopped holding open meetings and inviting discussion in advance of proposed agendas. ((trivia: how long has it been since there was a commentable public version of a board meeting agenda?))
I know it is not customary (unfortunately) any more that single Board members speak up.
I would also like to hear individual perspectives. This shift suggests a weakening, not a strengthening, of the Board's ability to effectively carry out its role and its duties to the Foundation. I would like to see dissenting opinions posted for all resolutions and opinions, but especially for this one.
More importantly, for those on this list who haven't noticed yet : the wikipedia community is weakening. This is not inherent; we are nowhere near our potential even as a meme; it is due to restriction and neglect. This is also not new; though easier to see over time -- the community has been on a broad decline since 2006. We have stopped founding major new projects, poured cold water on various community initiatives in the spirit of unification of brand, and generally eroded the community's boldness, authority, and implicit entrustedness with the success of the projects. I saw "we" here because all 750+ people reading this list have had some say in this as it has happened.
Wikipedia-l traffic is down to 15k a month; wikien will drop below 300k this month for the first time since the Indian Ocean Earthquake. There are fewer and fewer newbies who post to lists such as this, or feel they can have a say (or have a stake!) in project governance. It embarrasses me every time a wikimedian I respect trashes the foundation-l list, as this is one of our few thriving community channels, something we should all respect.
The community's sustainability been hampered by a foundation structure that regularly sees itself at odds with its communit[ies], has arrogated authority for various tasks away from community members, and has absorbed some of the best community members and then slowly, unwittingly incented them not to speak their mind.[1]
The foundation has faced its own internal struggles, so there are of course reasons it has not balanced its necessary bureaucracy with transparency, or been open about its direction and priorities[2]. However, the result is current priorities that (as might be expected) match the needs of the new bureaucracy -- including funding, expedient decision making, and professional staff -- and not those of the projects.[3] ((trivia: how long has it been since the last open board meeting?))
If we don't aggressively address this, the Foundation will soon oversee a useful, grantor-friendly, but increasingly ossified set of works; no longer one of the active wonders of the world. This is the sort of thing that Board, advisors, and all 800 people reading this list should care about[4]. Worrying about minimizing public discussion and criticism when we face a fundamental crisis with no obvious solution is misdirected.
Decisions like the latest board revision, made in haste, without discussion, and viewing the community's interests as secondary to expedience, are felt throughout the projects! and are a major part of this decline.
SJ ((answer[s]: 1. since before the start of the community's decline | 2. far too long ))
[1] another part is the rise of a generation of newbies that no longer has the bold founding spirit and has not been imbued with it by others -- something a greater focus on project sustainability could address. Jimbo, among others, used to be very good at this. As for absorbing good community members : the foundation's take on privacy and control filters out, into the projects and chapters and into community bodies such as arbcomms, and contributes to the rise of local, ehm, cabals.
[2] the major exception was the public discussion of the revision of the foundation's mission and vision statements. presumably a board that chooses to restructure without public discussion would feel free to change other founding documents without public discussion.
[3] Perhaps this simply means that the foundation does not wish to address the specific needs of the projects, and instead wants to be a self-sustaining pillar handling funds and professional relations with other organizations. Perhaps we need a separate concept, if not a body, to represent the core social and practical needs of the projects is needed. I don't know., and I'm on the fence about proposals I have seen for the latter. But avoiding stagnation should be foremost on everyone's minds, and this board restructuring and shift away from public board deliberations feel like steps in the wrong direction.
[4] is there a public place to contact our advisors? if not, can someone forward this to them?
--- On Sun, 4/27/08, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote: From: Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community To: effeietsanders@gmail.com, "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sunday, April 27, 2008, 11:58 AM
[3] Perhaps this simply means that the foundation does not wish to address the specific needs of the projects, and instead wants to be a self-sustaining pillar handling funds and professional relations with other organizations. Perhaps we need a separate concept, if not a body, to represent the core social and practical needs of the projects is needed. I don't know., and I'm on the fence about proposals I have seen for the latter. But avoiding stagnation should be foremost on everyone's minds, and this board restructuring and shift away from public board deliberations feel like steps in the wrong direction.
This is clearly the answer in my mind. However I feel this line was crossed about a year ago not just the other day. (Where have you been!) The WMF is an outward looking organization indifferent to the small successes and failures of the wikis. And more worried about preventing large failures than facilitating large successes. As far as the stagnation and restriction that you talk about, I believe it comes more from the OTRS/meta-minded Wikimedians rather than the board (I recognize this group also does a great deal of good and plain tedious stuff that no-one else does). And it is not as though WMF takes a strong role in leading that group. I can actually see the rejection of the Volunteer Council as being the board reigning the momentum in that direction in a bit. (While there were other ideas, Milos posted a great deal about top-down governance in regards to the Council)
Honestly I have given up on the WMF doing anything positive with a inward-looking looking focus (outside the work of the developers of course). But I also don't believe all the wiki's are in the trouble that you describe. I think the autonomy of the wiki's will pull them through. And while they would be better off with a best-case WMF focused on their development, they may be better off that the current WMF is indifferent. The only good thing about the politicking and power-plays within WMF is that they have hardly touched the wikis.
Birgitte SB
____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
Hi Brigitte,
As always, I relish your emails. Some answers inline:
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- On Sun, 4/27/08, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
[3] Perhaps this simply means that the foundation does not wish to address the specific needs of the projects, and instead wants to be a self-sustaining pillar handling funds and professional relations with other
This is clearly the answer in my mind. However I feel this line was crossed about a year ago not just the other day. (Where have you been!)
Since I see opportunity wasted if this path is taken too firmly, my hopes may have blinded me. The not-so-distant addition of new community seats to the board led me to think that we were headed in a slightly different direction. Of course a two-year-old dilemma did not happen just the other day :-) But it is also true that, much as I regret it, I have been away for some time...
The WMF is an outward looking organization indifferent to the small
successes and failures of the wikis. And more worried about preventing large failures than facilitating large successes.
Well, such an organization is certainly also important; though it should be open to input about how (for instance) to prevent large failures. As an example, I don't think the foundation's data is backed up redundantly enough or easy enough to mirror at the moment to prevent certain failures; I don't think we have good contingency plans for what would happen if all funds dried up in two years; and I would like to see a trust set up specifically to cover these basic needs.
Now that there are no longer regular firefights to keep the site running, we are still not publishing, discussing, and prioritizing goals to improve interface, robustness, and data-availability to everyone; or accessibility of the foundation itself in various languages -- the literal foundations on which the projects rest. And I see much of this resulting from people no longer feeling that these crucial choices and prioritizations are in their hands, when really they always have been. So I agree with other recent comments that the community should take these other matters into their own hands.
That said, the Board will set its own priorities, and the projects are currently in many ways deeply beholden to the Board (no image dumps available for over a year, for instance); if the Board ceases to be giuded primarily by the community, some simple checks and balances should be put into place.
As far as the stagnation and restriction that you talk about, I believe it comes more from the OTRS/meta-minded Wikimedians rather than the board (I recognize this group also does a great deal of good and plain tedious stuff that no-one else does). And it is not as though WMF takes a strong role in leading that group. I can actually see the rejection of the Volunteer Council as being the board reigning the momentum in that direction in a bit. (While there were other ideas, Milos posted a great deal about top-down governance in regards to the Council)
This is fair. We should come up with better suggestions. It is certainly true that the Foundation could have a structure wholly dissimilar from the projects + meta + otrs.
But I also don't believe all the wiki's are in the trouble that you
describe. I think the autonomy of the wiki's will pull them through.
Perhaps. But I see the foundation's role in encouraging growth and development of projects as extending at least to setting a good example re: transparency and communication, and actively facilitating that development, not simply avoiding harmful interference. Facilitation does not mean top-down direction.
And while they would be better off with a best-case WMF focused on their development, they may be better off that the current WMF is indifferent. The only good thing about the politicking and power-plays within WMF is that they have hardly touched the wikis.
Too true!
Anthere writes:
There are many ideas. But only so much time available. And some much energy. There are two main problems in my view.
One is that some board members hardly every communicate with the community. If these were elected community members, I would dare to say that this is the responsibility of the community to make sure they elect members with good communication skills. And the responsibility of the community to contact the board member if they feel the communication is not sufficient.
Yes. Maybe I should get serious about getting that writing requirement for new board members instated.
The second is a way to not only communicate with community, but to make sure that the answer we get is really representative of what the community think. And not simply the grumbles of 2-3 isolated individuals. Discussion on this list provides me with good ideas and allow me to feel very unpopular decisions, but it does not provide me with a good and accurate measure of what the community really think globally. Neither would a wikicouncil.
This is spot on. I hope that finding ways to accurately assess the ideas of the community is taken very seriously in the Foundation's priorities. The WMF is somewhere in between a traditional non-profit and a traditional municipality, and has some of the chores and obligations of both. Perhaps one of the 'experts' turned to for advice, if not seat-warming, is someone with experience in municipal governance.
SJ
Samuel Klein wrote:
((trivia: how long has it been since there was a commentable public version of a board meeting agenda?))
About a month.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-March/040556.html
(28th of march)
I have *always* (afaik) published in advance board meeting agendas.
ant
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 3:56 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Samuel Klein wrote:
((trivia: how long has it been since there was a commentable public
version
of a board meeting agenda?))
About a month.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-March/040556.html
(28th of march)
I have *always* (afaik) published in advance board meeting agendas.
Thank you for that reminder, and for clearly announcing board meetings in advance, which has been helpful and reliable. You announced this one rather farther in advance than just a week...
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-February/038858.html
I should have distinguished more clearly between the general overviews that have been the more recent style, and the detailed on-wiki bullet-point agendas that were once published in draft form (often long in advance; suggestions for the next board agenda could be found and added to at any time), explicitly open for discussion and suggestions, and revised publicly by board members.
On-wiki agendas, notable primarily for being there well in advance and for their obvious malleability:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_meeting_agendas&di...
I know that you intended for this to be a more open discussion of agenda items and points of discussion; you said as much in February. And that you have a tremendous amount on your plate. This is not a slam against you... but the redlink to the April agenda from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_meetings#2008 was never filled in. And I imagine that you and others may feel that, if you do not receive aggressive input and replies, that the community does not care, and that it hardly matters whether an agenda is made more public and advertised more widely or not. But I assure you that we do care, and that it does matter, and that this disconnect between those who care and those who speak to the Board will grow as long as this isolation increases.
Explicitly open for discussion and suggestions: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings is not an input-friendly page, does not link to agenda or minutes for the most recent meeting; and its talk page points to a meta talk page that hasn't had meaningful contributions since a query about why there weren't more recent updates, from Aphaia, in July 2006. There are around 750 people subscribed to this list -- a good number, but not close to the # of editors of meta.
Revised publicly by board members: I never see anything but official announcements about Board meetings these days, with the occasional brief email followup and neutral posting of the text of resolutions. There is no life or discussion around the resolutions, and community representatives on the Board rarely talk about their thoughts beyond the formal notes, a silence made more remarkable when controversy is at hand. Perhaps I just don't know where to look, but even simple discussions about what should or should not come up at a Board meeting, is now rare or obfuscated.
To use the board restructuring as an example, the last rough-summary-agenda you posted ("possible future council, next elections, professionalization of board, etc...") did not at all suggest to me a resolution altering future board composition might be in the works. I expected that the volunteer council idea would receive feedback, the details of the upcoming elections would be set (presumably for three positions, including the two newly created community positions), and a public discussion of professionalization of the board would follow -- something that has been alluded to many times in the past without details and which would no doubt give rise to interesting and illuminating discussions once the board's initial thoughts on the matter were shared.
This is different from what actually was discussed in a few ways, and anyone who had feedback to offer on the dramatic restructuring that was actually proposed and later resolved would not have had warning to offer that feedback. I do not think I am the only one who was surprised by Jan-Bart's recent announcement despite the agenda precis.
SJ
Samuel Klein wrote:
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 3:56 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Samuel Klein wrote:
((trivia: how long has it been since there was a commentable public
version
of a board meeting agenda?))
About a month.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-March/040556.html
(28th of march)
I have *always* (afaik) published in advance board meeting agendas.
Thank you for that reminder, and for clearly announcing board meetings in advance, which has been helpful and reliable. You announced this one rather farther in advance than just a week...
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-February/038858.html
I should have distinguished more clearly between the general overviews that have been the more recent style, and the detailed on-wiki bullet-point agendas that were once published in draft form (often long in advance; suggestions for the next board agenda could be found and added to at any time), explicitly open for discussion and suggestions, and revised publicly by board members.
On-wiki agendas, notable primarily for being there well in advance and for their obvious malleability:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_meeting_agendas&di...
I know that you intended for this to be a more open discussion of agenda items and points of discussion; you said as much in February. And that you have a tremendous amount on your plate. This is not a slam against you... but the redlink to the April agenda from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_meetings#2008 was never filled in.
Correct.
By and large, this type of activity is under the responsibility of the secretary. Until November, we had a secretary. He was very well taking care of minutes and publishing most resolutions. However, he never took care of filling up the type of pages you are showing. I tried to maintain such pages as I felt it was best.
Between November and March, we had no secretary. Not out of trying. I asked a volunteer at least 3 times and I met a deep silence from the rest of the board. During 5 months, we had no secretary and no treasurer. I tried the best I could to supplement.
Since March, we have a new secretary. So, I expect this will be taken care of. But not by I.
And I imagine that you and others may feel that, if you do not receive aggressive input and replies, that the community does not care, and that it hardly matters whether an agenda is made more public and advertised more widely or not. But I assure you that we do care, and that it does matter, and that this disconnect between those who care and those who speak to the Board will grow as long as this isolation increases.
Yup
Explicitly open for discussion and suggestions: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings is not an input-friendly page, does not link to agenda or minutes for the most recent meeting; and its talk page points to a meta talk page that hasn't had meaningful contributions since a query about why there weren't more recent updates, from Aphaia, in July 2006. There are around 750 people subscribed to this list -- a good number, but not close to the # of editors of meta.
Yes, I chose to publish the agenda of meetings on this list. Sometimes, editors comment on this list, sometimes they comment by private email (I got several requests regarding privacy policy, CU issues and Oversight policy after last publication of agenda; the privacy policy issue was fixed, though the update of the policy has not yet been published). Other times people drop me notes on my talk pages. I regularly patrol those to make sure not to miss things.
I stopped publishing regularly those on meta, mostly because I got very little feedback from those pages.
Revised publicly by board members: I never see anything but official announcements about Board meetings these days, with the occasional brief email followup and neutral posting of the text of resolutions. There is no life or discussion around the resolutions, and community representatives on the Board rarely talk about their thoughts beyond the formal notes, a silence made more remarkable when controversy is at hand.
Frankly, this is making me swallow painfully. I do not think you have been reading my emails on this list for at least 6 months. If you had, you would have read "life", "disagreement", "personal position".
Perhaps I just don't know where to look, but even simple discussions about what should or should not come up at a Board meeting, is now rare or obfuscated.
Probably. However, it is also probably due to the fact we hired Sue. Operational issues are now in her hands, not in ours anymore, a fact that the community still does not seem to have grasped. Most of our past year discussions have also been on topics either quite confidential, or at least on issues which seriously should not been discussed publicly.
I however would agree with you that board restructuring is a public issue, and I apology to those of you who felt it should have been discussed.
To use the board restructuring as an example, the last rough-summary-agenda you posted ("possible future council, next elections, professionalization of board, etc...") did not at all suggest to me a resolution altering future board composition might be in the works. I expected that the volunteer council idea would receive feedback, the details of the upcoming elections would be set (presumably for three positions, including the two newly created community positions), and a public discussion of professionalization of the board would follow -- something that has been alluded to many times in the past without details and which would no doubt give rise to interesting and illuminating discussions once the board's initial thoughts on the matter were shared.
Yes. I fully agree with you. After the day-discussion in SFO regarding board restructuring, I had to take a two-hours break to cool down.
Ant
This is different from what actually was discussed in a few ways, and anyone who had feedback to offer on the dramatic restructuring that was actually proposed and later resolved would not have had warning to offer that feedback. I do not think I am the only one who was surprised by Jan-Bart's recent announcement despite the agenda precis.
SJ
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 2:58 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
[4] is there a public place to contact our advisors?
Anyone who wants to contact the advisory board is welcome to go through me for that. I can either forward messages to the whole group, or pass on contact details for specific members who might be able to help. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
if not, can someone forward this to them?
I have forwarded your email to the advisory board members. However, I should point out that they were not asked about this either and know less about it that readers of this mailing list. All I get from the board of trustees is announcements after they've made their decisions behind closed doors, not any requests for advice.
Angela
This is curious too - the page on the Advisory Board says they will be asked for advice about organizational development, among other things, but Angela says that she has not (or never?) received or forwarded requests for advice. Can we conclude that the Advisory Board is not necessary, or that with the professionalizing effort the Advisory Board is just not as necessary as it once might have been? Perhaps a topic for a different thread, but I'll admit I thought that the Advisory Board was playing at least some role.
Nathan
On 4/27/08, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 2:58 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
[4] is there a public place to contact our advisors?
Anyone who wants to contact the advisory board is welcome to go through me for that. I can either forward messages to the whole group, or pass on contact details for specific members who might be able to help. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
if not, can someone forward this to them?
I have forwarded your email to the advisory board members. However, I should point out that they were not asked about this either and know less about it that readers of this mailing list. All I get from the board of trustees is announcements after they've made their decisions behind closed doors, not any requests for advice.
Angela
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello,
I am not quite sure how to voice that in a diplomatic fashion.
But... what is the expertise provided by the Advisory Board regarding the WMF 4 years relationships with the Wikimedia chapters ?
Ant
Nathan wrote:
This is curious too - the page on the Advisory Board says they will be asked for advice about organizational development, among other things, but Angela says that she has not (or never?) received or forwarded requests for advice. Can we conclude that the Advisory Board is not necessary, or that with the professionalizing effort the Advisory Board is just not as necessary as it once might have been? Perhaps a topic for a different thread, but I'll admit I thought that the Advisory Board was playing at least some role.
Nathan
On 4/27/08, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 2:58 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
[4] is there a public place to contact our advisors?
Anyone who wants to contact the advisory board is welcome to go through me for that. I can either forward messages to the whole group, or pass on contact details for specific members who might be able to help. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
if not, can someone forward this to them?
I have forwarded your email to the advisory board members. However, I should point out that they were not asked about this either and know less about it that readers of this mailing list. All I get from the board of trustees is announcements after they've made their decisions behind closed doors, not any requests for advice.
Angela
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Ant,
I guess I don't really know, but then again I'm not on the Advisory Board ;-) I imagine they have experience with board composition and restructuring, experience with relations between organizations and affiliates etc. I was more curious about the work that the Advisory Board does in general, and I'm relieved by Angela's last response that clarifies that the Advisory Board is indeed involved - just not on this issue.
Separately, while the interaction between the Board and the community is one that does not satisfy everyone... I do thank you for your responsiveness on this list (and also of course the other Board members like Michael Snow who have remained involved in discussions on Foundation-l). Your work and willingness to interact is appreciated by all.
Thanks,
Nathan
On 4/27/08, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Hello,
I am not quite sure how to voice that in a diplomatic fashion.
But... what is the expertise provided by the Advisory Board regarding the WMF 4 years relationships with the Wikimedia chapters ?
Ant
Nathan wrote:
This is curious too - the page on the Advisory Board says they will be
asked
for advice about organizational development, among other things, but
Angela
says that she has not (or never?) received or forwarded requests for
advice.
Can we conclude that the Advisory Board is not necessary, or that with
the
professionalizing effort the Advisory Board is just not as necessary as
it
once might have been? Perhaps a topic for a different thread, but I'll
admit
I thought that the Advisory Board was playing at least some role.
Nathan
On 4/27/08, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 2:58 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
wrote:
[4] is there a public place to contact our advisors?
Anyone who wants to contact the advisory board is welcome to go through me for that. I can either forward messages to the whole group, or pass on contact details for specific members who might be able to help. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
if not, can someone forward this to them?
I have forwarded your email to the advisory board members. However, I should point out that they were not asked about this either and know less about it that readers of this mailing list. All I get from the board of trustees is announcements after they've made their decisions behind closed doors, not any requests for advice.
Angela
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I think I've never been in conflicts of interest, but at least some of them are very nice to respond a random Wikimedian (me!) question by email like "Hi, I've recently seen you on foundation-l and I know you as a member of Wikimedia AB. I think you have expertise to help solving our project issues of [a project name]. Would you mind giving me some pointers we can dig out this topic and make a good solution?" Having a pool of expertise is nice, isn't it?
And I would add, a AB member helped greatly us last year, and the recent annoucement suggests the relationship between another org which was established through last year election process is healthily maintained.
Just a thought.
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:09 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Hello,
I am not quite sure how to voice that in a diplomatic fashion.
But... what is the expertise provided by the Advisory Board regarding the WMF 4 years relationships with the Wikimedia chapters ?
Ant
Nathan wrote:
This is curious too - the page on the Advisory Board says they will be asked for advice about organizational development, among other things, but Angela says that she has not (or never?) received or forwarded requests for advice. Can we conclude that the Advisory Board is not necessary, or that with the professionalizing effort the Advisory Board is just not as necessary as it once might have been? Perhaps a topic for a different thread, but I'll admit I thought that the Advisory Board was playing at least some role.
Nathan
On 4/27/08, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 2:58 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
[4] is there a public place to contact our advisors?
Anyone who wants to contact the advisory board is welcome to go through me for that. I can either forward messages to the whole group, or pass on contact details for specific members who might be able to help. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
if not, can someone forward this to them?
I have forwarded your email to the advisory board members. However, I should point out that they were not asked about this either and know less about it that readers of this mailing list. All I get from the board of trustees is announcements after they've made their decisions behind closed doors, not any requests for advice.
Angela
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The advisory board has extensive experience in the management of organizations like the WMF, many of its members have had experienced board restructurings and shufflings. Their expertise should have been consulted on this matter.
I'm looking through the Advisory Board's expertise and I'm flabbergasted that they weren't consulted.
Angela- experience with the WMF Board, and dealing with the chapters. Heather Ford - "bringing together the various 'streams' of the global commons movement" sounds very much like the WMF's relationship with Chapters Debbie Garside- Committee work and work with ISO is extremely relevant to chapters. Danny Hillis- Has experience with other boards of directors, Mitch Kapor- Has experience with other boards of directors, including some that have chapter like structures. Teemu leinonen- work with UNESCO and other organizations can be related to working with chapters. Rebecca MacKinnon- Work with CNN, substitute bureaus for chapters and you have a similar thing. Wayne Mackintosh- Commonwealth of Learning has a chapter-like organization Benjamin Mako Hill- Has experience with other boards of directors Erin McKean- Has experience with other boards of directors Trevor Neilson- Has experience with other boards of directors, work with GBC is very chapterlike. Clay Shirky - Bolding for emphasis- My interests relevant to Wikimedia are social software generally, and in particular governance problems; what changes in coordination costs for groups do to the economics of information production; and the design of federated networks. Peter Suber- serves on several boards of directors Raoul Weiler- other boards of directors experience, chairs a chapter of a different organization.
At the very least, Angela should have been consulted, along with Clay Shirky (in his field of expertise), possibly Raoul Weiler (regarding chapters), and several of the listed above members who have experience working on other boards, as well as chapter-like organizations.
I have no idea how you can say the advisory board has no expertise on this matter. This is the very definition of an issue that should be presented for them.
-Dan
On Apr 27, 2008, at 10:09 PM, Florence Devouard wrote:
Hello,
I am not quite sure how to voice that in a diplomatic fashion.
But... what is the expertise provided by the Advisory Board regarding the WMF 4 years relationships with the Wikimedia chapters ?
Ant
Nathan wrote:
This is curious too - the page on the Advisory Board says they will be asked for advice about organizational development, among other things, but Angela says that she has not (or never?) received or forwarded requests for advice. Can we conclude that the Advisory Board is not necessary, or that with the professionalizing effort the Advisory Board is just not as necessary as it once might have been? Perhaps a topic for a different thread, but I'll admit I thought that the Advisory Board was playing at least some role.
Nathan
On 4/27/08, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 2:58 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
[4] is there a public place to contact our advisors?
Anyone who wants to contact the advisory board is welcome to go through me for that. I can either forward messages to the whole group, or pass on contact details for specific members who might be able to help. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
if not, can someone forward this to them?
I have forwarded your email to the advisory board members. However, I should point out that they were not asked about this either and know less about it that readers of this mailing list. All I get from the board of trustees is announcements after they've made their decisions behind closed doors, not any requests for advice.
Angela
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On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:44 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
This is curious too - the page on the Advisory Board says they will be asked for advice about organizational development, among other things, but Angela says that she has not (or never?) received or forwarded requests for advice.
Not never; just not as often as I'd like. People from the advisory board have been involved in various things (fundraising, wikimania, swot analysis, etc) but there's a long list of areas I wished they had been consulted on and simply weren't. I have emailed them offlist about this, so I won't say anything more here.
Angela
2008/4/27 Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com:
Wikipedia-l traffic is down to 15k a month; wikien will drop below 300k this month for the first time since the Indian Ocean Earthquake.
Just on lists -
wikipedia-l is all but moribund; project discussion happens on the project lists, cross-project discussion here. What are the numbers for all the public lists?
wikien-l's drop in traffic can IMO be attributed to having moderated the most querulous contributors, and their contributions tend to have more substance per message now. I'm also still at work on encouraging wikien-l toward being an actually useful place that an encyclopedist would *want* to read and write on. I'm happy to say it's probably better than useless at present, after a long time of frequently being worse than useless.
- d.
I don't know if others are simply not reading the situation as I have been but I though I would share my impressions here. The restructuring strikes me as being a difficult compromise. Overall I am happy with it considering what I imagine some of the extreme positions to have been. I don't believe anyone went into board meeting anticipating the outcome that was just announced. My impressions from reading this list for years is that most people had much more extreme positions. I imagine that some want something close to a 10-member board with 3 traditionally elected members and others wanted close 80% traditionally elected members. Some people want to have Jimmy's seat to be "community elected", while others feel doing that would be stealing a seat from the community since there is little chance anyone could beat him. I imagine the "chapter election" scheme was a creative compromise to allow the majority of seats some insisted to be from the community while addressing the distrust others have for the results of our traditional community elections (i.e. Danny was nearly elected last run and that obviously cannot sit well with some board members).
If there had been a large discussion on board restructuring before the meeting I doubt that the current compromise would have even been on the table for us to discuss. And let us not forget the numerous threads on board restructuring from Florence which received little or no responses. If there had been a discussion beforehand, I think it would have focused on extreme positions rather than anything close to a workable compromise. And most board members would not share on this list what issues are deal-breakers for them, so we would be unable to offer anything specific for a proposal that would having any hope of passing. And I think in general, community concerns over the board have been discussed enough in the past to ensure the board was not uniformed.
On the other hand, I do not see why the board cannot treat the current proposal as in a "community comment period" right now before making the actual amendment to the by-laws. For one thing I would suggest that the "expertise" seats constitute "up to four seats" rather require four seats to always be filled.
Birgitte SB
--- On Sun, 4/27/08, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
From: effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com Subject: [Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sunday, April 27, 2008, 5:09 AM Dear Domas, Florence, Frieda, Kat and Michael, (and maybe Jimmy too)
Yesterday the Board announced a major change in the bylaws and power structure. Although I see some positive aspects in the change from my personal point of view (I have still not seen the official changes - as you might know by now, I am for balance - so until then I can't be definitive about that), let me summarize what is happening here: Without asking any feedback from the community before the decision has been made, the Board decides to convert two community seats into chapter seats (it has always been announced that Domas' and Michaels chair were intended to become community seats too) and two expert seats were added, bringing down the community share in the board from 71% to 50% or 30% (depending whether you count chapter seats as community seats) of course assuming that the expert seats will be filled too.
This is quite a huge change with a huge impact on the power structure of the Wikimedia Foundation and therefore of the Wikimedia Movement. And this has been done without asking even advice to the community or the chapters? I find this a very strange procedure for a movement as the ours, and I am for the second time in a row very much disappointed. This time by all community Board Members, who
- all of
them! - dit NOT contact the community or chapters for a view!
I would very much like an explanation from every board member why they have chosen not to ask the opinion of the community. Because you're not going to sell me the story that this idea was totally new on the board meeting, and that you had no time. Because this was of course already on the agenda of the meeting: "We plan to dedicate saturday to board development and governance. This will include relationships and contractual agreement between board and executive director, possible future council, next elections, professionalization of board, etc..." (quote from Florence's email announcing the coming up Board meeting)
And please don't tell me either that the only "platform" there is, the foundation-l, does not function any more. Although that statement would be true to some extent, but it would highly puzzle me why the heck you have concluded from the new layout of the board to *not* need a Volunteer Council of *any* shape any more. Why you do not even want to encourage the research after the possibilities any more... Let me quote from your FAQ: "* `What does this [The restructuring of the board, LG] mean for the 'wikicouncil?' - The "wikicouncil" and "volunteer council" were part of the board discussions about its restructure. At this stage, we have decided to not take action on the proposal to develop a Volunteer Council. (...)"
I think this restructuring of the Board only shows once more why we need a Wikicouncil. The Board itself is apperently not able to ask input herself on big decisions, and this sets a very bad precedent to the future. Apperently the Board is in need of some kind of council that is, in contrary to the few community members left in the board, able to bring through the questions to the communities. Maybe the VC would not function perfectly, but from what I am seeing now, it would at least do a much better job, because of course this is a very sad day for community involvement in the Wikimedia Movement.
So please, Domas, Florence, Frieda, Kat and Michael, (and maybe Jimmy too), let's just be fair and state your opinion. What is *your* thought about community involvement. Should community only be allowed to say something every two years? Should community only be allowed to say something afterwards (the perfect receipe for ranting, btw)? Do you think community members could be smart people who have a smart opinion about the topics you discuss? Do you think they might come up with arguments you did not think of yet?
If you think so, you should start working, in one way or another, on some kind of platform that is able to improve your attempts to contact the community on major decisions. And no, I have no ready-boiled plan for it, but I do know that there is a catalyst out there, that could come up with a nice result. That catalyst consists of a group of dedicated people, with a wide range of views, that could maybe come up with something that is actually good.
If you think this all is no longer needed, then please say so, then we know what we're up to.
I know it is not customary (unfortunately) any more that single Board members speak up. However, in this case I find it very important not to hear the Boards voice any more, but the individual's voice. Because that is highly important to be able to choose between people in elections and "chapter appointments". Is it not on a short term, then it will be in a year, but there will be a moment, and I would like to know who I am dealing with here. As I said before, I am disappointed in you, and that means that I had a better impression of you.
Regards, and looking forward to all your replies,
Lodewijk
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Birgitte SB wrote:
I don't know if others are simply not reading the situation as I have been but I though I would share my impressions here. The restructuring strikes me as being a difficult compromise. Overall I am happy with it considering what I imagine some of the extreme positions to have been. I don't believe anyone went into board meeting anticipating the outcome that was just announced. My impressions from reading this list for years is that most people had much more extreme positions. I imagine that some want something close to a 10-member board with 3 traditionally elected members and others wanted close 80% traditionally elected members. Some people want to have Jimmy's seat to be "community elected", while others feel doing that would be stealing a seat from the community since there is little c hance anyone could beat him. I imagine the "chapter election" scheme was a creative compromise to allow the majority of seats some insisted to be from the community while addressing the distrust others have for the results of our traditional community elections (i.e. Danny was nearly elected last run and that obviously cannot sit well with some board members).
If there had been a large discussion on board restructuring before the meeting I doubt that the current compromise would have even been on the table for us to discuss. And let us not forget the numerous threads on board restructuring from Florence which received little or no responses. If there had been a discussion beforehand, I think it would have focused on extreme positions rather than anything close to a workable compromise. And most board members would not share on this list what issues are deal-breakers for them, so we would be unable to offer anything specific for a proposal that would having any hope of passing. And I think in general, community concerns over the board have been discussed enough in the past to ensure the board was not uniformed.
On the other hand, I do not see why the board cannot treat the current proposal as in a "community comment period" right now before making the actual amendment to the by-laws. For one thing I would suggest that the "expertise" seats constitute "up to four seats" rather require four seats to always be filled.
Birgitte SB
Your email is pretty much on the spot Birgitte !
ant
Birgitte, I think I agree with most of what you write. Some specific comments:
Birgitte SB wrote:
If there had been a large discussion on board restructuring before the
meeting I doubt that the current compromise would have even been on the table for us to discuss.
Why not?
And let us not forget the numerous threads on board restructuring from
Florence which received little or no responses.
This seems to me a topic which is not very conducive to threads, but more to revision of specific proposals with attention paid to details. At any rate, see below for reciprocity re: the lack of response from the Board to the Volunter council discussion. This is not lack of interest, it is lack of communication.
If there had been a discussion beforehand, I think it would have focused
on
extreme positions rather than anything close to a workable compromise.
Perhaps so. One could say the same thing about making changes to the mission and vision statements.
And most board members would not share on this list what issues are deal-breakers for them, so we would be unable to offer anything specific
for a
proposal that would having any hope of passing.
I should hope this is not the case -- why do you say it is? Hopefully they will at least share on this list whether or not this is true :-) @ Board members : are you wary of sharing your true positions on delicate issues on this list? Why or why not?
And I think in general, community concerns over the board have been
discussed
enough in the past to ensure the board was not uniformed.
Perhaps. The same concerns led to the proposal of a volunteer council, with apparently more legwork and discussion than was given to the new board proposal, and the board hasn't given much feedback there. It isn't that the presented proposal is terrible, it is that absent strong indication that such a resolution was in the works, it is far too significant to have been made without notice.
If you think the core issue here is deciding on a set of rules for board membership that most rules-lawyers won't disagree with too much, I think you are pursuing a red herring. The issue here is community empowerment, not just through the board, but through engagement in the process that brought about new bylaws. The loss is a community that feels incrementally disempowered. The benefit of a vibrant discussion, even one involving flame wars and extreme positions, is almost independent of the impact it has on the final decision : it inspires those who care about the future of Wikimedia and the projects to take an active role in discussing their future.
The misfortune here is that, despite the thousands of Wiki[mp]edians who care deeply about community governance, we were somehow not able to generate a lively and informative discussion about altering our own must central governing body.
On the other hand, I do not see why the board cannot treat the current
proposal as
in a "community comment period" right now before making the actual
amendment
to the by-laws.
Perhaps this is how it was meant. That would be an excellent update to the announcement.
SJ
For one thing I would suggest that the "expertise" seats constitute "up to four seats" rather require four seats to always be filled.
--- On Sun, 4/27/08, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
From: Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sunday, April 27, 2008, 8:37 PM Birgitte, I think I agree with most of what you write. Some specific comments:
Birgitte SB wrote:
If there had been a large discussion on board
restructuring before the meeting I doubt that the current compromise would have even been on the table for us to discuss.
Why not?
Because I do not believe it existed before the actual meeting and we could not have developed a compromise in this direction not knowing the frank opinions and deal-breakers of the board members.
And let us not forget the numerous threads on board
restructuring from Florence which received little or no responses.
This seems to me a topic which is not very conducive to threads, but more to revision of specific proposals with attention paid to details. At any rate, see below for reciprocity re: the lack of response from the Board to the Volunter council discussion. This is not lack of interest, it is lack of communication.
I think this is partly due to the "single voice" theory that WMF is currently subscribing to and partly due to the fact that specific proposals developed in advance do not seem to workable in the current political environment. Regarding the latter, I notice that there is consistently strong opposition to any specifically proposed changes. Whether it is due the actual merits of proposal or more about opposing the faction who wrote the proposal, I cannot always determine. In any event it appears to me that the only way things can actually be achieved is through adhoc proposals that are adopted before there is chance for them to spun by the court gossip so to speak. Please don't read this as an excuse to shut out community input, but rather simply my speculation on the realities of the political situation where there appears to be no hope of a coalition and little trust. I still think we can accept the situation, be supportive that the board has managed to find this compromise rather digging their heels in and bickering by proxy, and expect them to be receptive to community input and willing to make further updates based on the input now being given.
If there had been a discussion beforehand, I think it
would have focused on
extreme positions rather than anything close to a
workable compromise.
Perhaps so. One could say the same thing about making changes to the mission and vision statements.
I don't believe there ever were the opposing positions on those statements as their are on several of the issues here.
And most board members would not share on this list
what issues are
deal-breakers for them, so we would be unable to offer
anything specific for a
proposal that would having any hope of passing.
I should hope this is not the case -- why do you say it is? Hopefully they will at least share on this list whether or not this is true :-) @ Board members : are you wary of sharing your true positions on delicate issues on this list? Why or why not?
SJ do you seriously doubt this?? I suppose I say this because it is consistent with my past observations (which is pretty why I say everything in emails like this as no one is feeding me any information). What past behavior of board members, outside of Anthere, would lead you to believe they would frankly outline what their personal deal-breakers are in this area?
And I think in general, community concerns over the
board have been discussed
enough in the past to ensure the board was not
uniformed.
Perhaps. The same concerns led to the proposal of a volunteer council, with apparently more legwork and discussion than was given to the new board proposal, and the board hasn't given much feedback there. It isn't that the presented proposal is terrible, it is that absent strong indication that such a resolution was in the works, it is far too significant to have been made without notice.
I feel Anthere and Micheal gave some good feedback there. Personally I think you give more credit to the planning of this resolution than I do.
If you think the core issue here is deciding on a set of rules for board membership that most rules-lawyers won't disagree with too much, I think you are pursuing a red herring. The issue here is community empowerment, not just through the board, but through engagement in the process that brought about new bylaws. The loss is a community that feels incrementally disempowered. The benefit of a vibrant discussion, even one involving flame wars and extreme positions, is almost independent of the impact it has on the final decision : it inspires those who care about the future of Wikimedia and the projects to take an active role in discussing their future.
The misfortune here is that, despite the thousands of Wiki[mp]edians who care deeply about community governance, we were somehow not able to generate a lively and informative discussion about altering our own must central governing body.
I'm not sure the core issue is either of those things. I think the core issue is much more about practicality. My speculation: They needed a treasurer. They couldn't find one in the community so they had appoint one. They looked to the future of how Stu's seat should work out which brought up the previously tabled discussion of the size of the board. At the same time they looked over the VC proposal. They dislike the tying of it legally to WMF; so they rejected it. They saw that rejecting the of VC and the appointing of an outsider announced together could be read as anti-community. There was someone who strongly insisted an expanded board to have a majority come from the community. Someone else who distrusts the results of the last election refused to increase the number of seats elected in that manner. The "chapter compromise" was reached. The poor workings in the appointing a new treasurer in a timely manner was discussed. The "nominating committee" solution was worked out. As long as they are reworking the whole structure they have deal with Jimmy's seat and the standing disagreements about it; compromise was reached.
As I see it the core issues in the restructuring were the previous discussed need to expand the board, the poor functioning of the treasurer search (in timely sense, not a dis of Stu), keeping the board connected to the community, avoiding having "untrustworthy people" elected to the board.
That you wish the core issue of this thread to focus on one of those issues does not mean the other issues were not a factor and that it is a red herring for me to discuss them. Of course my speculation could be wrong and I could be following a red herring in that regard. But I do not think that is what you meant. But despite all this back in forth, I do not disagree with you all that much. I do think you adopting an purposely naive position to make a point, where I would rather stick to things that realistic given the WMF as it currently exists.
On the other hand, I do not see why the board cannot
treat the current proposal as
in a "community comment period" right now
before making the actual amendment
to the by-laws.
Perhaps this is how it was meant. That would be an excellent update to the announcement.
I hope the board can see the advantage to this approach however it was meant.
Birgitte SB
SJ
For one thing I would suggest that the
"expertise" seats constitute
"up to four seats" rather require four seats
to always be filled. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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I fully agree with what you write below and this is I believe the only way out is creation of closed groups which would PREPARE a dreaft/resolution/whatever on a single issue. With some input from the community, yes, but without a simple vote, because everything gets voted down or gets just stuck undecided. Then the resolution can be voted by the Board.
Cheers Yaroslav
I think this is partly due to the "single voice" theory that WMF is currently subscribing to and partly due to the fact that specific proposals developed in advance do not seem to workable in the current political environment. Regarding the latter, I notice that there is consistently strong opposition to any specifically proposed changes. Whether it is due the actual merits of proposal or more about opposing the faction who wrote the proposal, I cannot always determine. In any event it appears to me that the only way things can actually be achieved is through adhoc proposals that are adopted before there is chance for them to spun by the court gossip so to speak. Please don't read this as an excuse to shut out community input, but rather simply my speculation on the realities of the political situation where there appears to be no hope of a coalition and little trust. I still think we can accept the situation, be supportive that the board has managed to find this compromise rather digging their heels in and bickering by proxy, and expect them to be receptive to community input and willing to make further updates based on the input now being given.
effe iets anders wrote:
Yesterday the Board announced a major change in the bylaws and power structure. Although I see some positive aspects in the change from my personal point of view (I have still not seen the official changes - as you might know by now, I am for balance - so until then I can't be definitive about that), let me summarize what is happening here: Without asking any feedback from the community before the decision has been made, the Board decides to convert two community seats into chapter seats (it has always been announced that Domas' and Michaels chair were intended to become community seats too) and two expert seats were added, bringing down the community share in the board from 71% to 50% or 30% (depending whether you count chapter seats as community seats) of course assuming that the expert seats will be filled too.
I take to heart your comments about the lack of soliciting feedback. Some elements of the idea I had previously discussed with people (community, chapters, staff), including in my election campaign last year, and generally the responses I received were positive. I don't recall it being a topic on this list, though. The responses here to the Volunteer Council proposal illustrate some of the challenges of getting useful feedback that way. I followed that closely and had difficulty coming away with a useful take-home message, amid the various criticisms and diffusion of counter-proposals or suggested modifications.
I think this restructuring of the Board only shows once more why we need a Wikicouncil. The Board itself is apperently not able to ask input herself on big decisions, and this sets a very bad precedent to the future. Apperently the Board is in need of some kind of council that is, in contrary to the few community members left in the board, able to bring through the questions to the communities. Maybe the VC would not function perfectly, but from what I am seeing now, it would at least do a much better job, because of course this is a very sad day for community involvement in the Wikimedia Movement.
So please, Domas, Florence, Frieda, Kat and Michael, (and maybe Jimmy too), let's just be fair and state your opinion. What is *your* thought about community involvement. Should community only be allowed to say something every two years? Should community only be allowed to say something afterwards (the perfect receipe for ranting, btw)? Do you think community members could be smart people who have a smart opinion about the topics you discuss? Do you think they might come up with arguments you did not think of yet?
If you think so, you should start working, in one way or another, on some kind of platform that is able to improve your attempts to contact the community on major decisions. And no, I have no ready-boiled plan for it, but I do know that there is a catalyst out there, that could come up with a nice result. That catalyst consists of a group of dedicated people, with a wide range of views, that could maybe come up with something that is actually good.
Lodewijk, I'm very glad to see that you've changed your labels to recognize that the catalyst should be the people working on the proposal, instead of waiting for the board to be the catalyst as you were putting it previously. I think it likely that if the board creates a council, that will end up defining its relationship to the community and the world at large, and it will be perceived as a creature (literally, "thing created") of the board. If so, it would lose nearly all the value hoped for in its development. On the other hand, if the community creates a council, then I would certainly want to be aware of its perspective on foundation issues, and I expect other board members would as well.
--Michael Snow
2008/4/28 Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net:
effe iets anders wrote:
Yesterday the Board announced a major change in the bylaws and power structure. Although I see some positive aspects in the change from my personal point of view (I have still not seen the official changes - as you might know by now, I am for balance - so until then I can't be definitive about that), let me summarize what is happening here: Without asking any feedback from the community before the decision has been made, the Board decides to convert two community seats into chapter seats (it has always been announced that Domas' and Michaels chair were intended to become community seats too) and two expert seats were added, bringing down the community share in the board from 71% to 50% or 30% (depending whether you count chapter seats as community seats) of course assuming that the expert seats will be filled too.
I take to heart your comments about the lack of soliciting feedback. Some elements of the idea I had previously discussed with people (community, chapters, staff), including in my election campaign last year, and generally the responses I received were positive. I don't recall it being a topic on this list, though. The responses here to the Volunteer Council proposal illustrate some of the challenges of getting useful feedback that way. I followed that closely and had difficulty coming away with a useful take-home message, amid the various criticisms and diffusion of counter-proposals or suggested modifications.
I think this restructuring of the Board only shows once more why we need a Wikicouncil. The Board itself is apperently not able to ask input herself on big decisions, and this sets a very bad precedent to the future. Apperently the Board is in need of some kind of council that is, in contrary to the few community members left in the board, able to bring through the questions to the communities. Maybe the VC would not function perfectly, but from what I am seeing now, it would at least do a much better job, because of course this is a very sad day for community involvement in the Wikimedia Movement.
So please, Domas, Florence, Frieda, Kat and Michael, (and maybe Jimmy too), let's just be fair and state your opinion. What is *your* thought about community involvement. Should community only be allowed to say something every two years? Should community only be allowed to say something afterwards (the perfect receipe for ranting, btw)? Do you think community members could be smart people who have a smart opinion about the topics you discuss? Do you think they might come up with arguments you did not think of yet?
If you think so, you should start working, in one way or another, on some kind of platform that is able to improve your attempts to contact the community on major decisions. And no, I have no ready-boiled plan for it, but I do know that there is a catalyst out there, that could come up with a nice result. That catalyst consists of a group of dedicated people, with a wide range of views, that could maybe come up with something that is actually good.
Lodewijk, I'm very glad to see that you've changed your labels to recognize that the catalyst should be the people working on the proposal, instead of waiting for the board to be the catalyst as you were putting it previously. I think it likely that if the board creates a council, that will end up defining its relationship to the community and the world at large, and it will be perceived as a creature (literally, "thing created") of the board. If so, it would lose nearly all the value hoped for in its development. On the other hand, if the community creates a council, then I would certainly want to be aware of its perspective on foundation issues, and I expect other board members would as well.
--Michael Snow
Hi Michael,
thanks for your email. I don't want to be rude, but could you please also try to more explicitely answer my questions? Thanks :)
Lodewijk
effe iets anders wrote:
2008/4/28 Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net:
effe iets anders wrote:
Yesterday the Board announced a major change in the bylaws and power structure. Although I see some positive aspects in the change from my personal point of view (I have still not seen the official changes - as you might know by now, I am for balance - so until then I can't be definitive about that), let me summarize what is happening here: Without asking any feedback from the community before the decision has been made, the Board decides to convert two community seats into chapter seats (it has always been announced that Domas' and Michaels chair were intended to become community seats too) and two expert seats were added, bringing down the community share in the board from 71% to 50% or 30% (depending whether you count chapter seats as community seats) of course assuming that the expert seats will be filled too.
I take to heart your comments about the lack of soliciting feedback. Some elements of the idea I had previously discussed with people (community, chapters, staff), including in my election campaign last year, and generally the responses I received were positive. I don't recall it being a topic on this list, though. The responses here to the Volunteer Council proposal illustrate some of the challenges of getting useful feedback that way. I followed that closely and had difficulty coming away with a useful take-home message, amid the various criticisms and diffusion of counter-proposals or suggested modifications.
I think this restructuring of the Board only shows once more why we need a Wikicouncil. The Board itself is apperently not able to ask input herself on big decisions, and this sets a very bad precedent to the future. Apperently the Board is in need of some kind of council that is, in contrary to the few community members left in the board, able to bring through the questions to the communities. Maybe the VC would not function perfectly, but from what I am seeing now, it would at least do a much better job, because of course this is a very sad day for community involvement in the Wikimedia Movement.
So please, Domas, Florence, Frieda, Kat and Michael, (and maybe Jimmy too), let's just be fair and state your opinion. What is *your* thought about community involvement. Should community only be allowed to say something every two years? Should community only be allowed to say something afterwards (the perfect receipe for ranting, btw)? Do you think community members could be smart people who have a smart opinion about the topics you discuss? Do you think they might come up with arguments you did not think of yet?
If you think so, you should start working, in one way or another, on some kind of platform that is able to improve your attempts to contact the community on major decisions. And no, I have no ready-boiled plan for it, but I do know that there is a catalyst out there, that could come up with a nice result. That catalyst consists of a group of dedicated people, with a wide range of views, that could maybe come up with something that is actually good.
Lodewijk, I'm very glad to see that you've changed your labels to recognize that the catalyst should be the people working on the proposal, instead of waiting for the board to be the catalyst as you were putting it previously. I think it likely that if the board creates a council, that will end up defining its relationship to the community and the world at large, and it will be perceived as a creature (literally, "thing created") of the board. If so, it would lose nearly all the value hoped for in its development. On the other hand, if the community creates a council, then I would certainly want to be aware of its perspective on foundation issues, and I expect other board members would as well.
--Michael Snow
Hi Michael,
thanks for your email. I don't want to be rude, but could you please also try to more explicitely answer my questions? Thanks :)
I certainly don't take it as rude. I didn't intend to be rude either, but I took the questions as being rhetorical - meaning in this case that the answers are implied by the questions themselves. So instead of merely answering them - because I think a response like no-no-yes-yes --~~~~ would hardly add any value to the discussion - I thought I would elaborate a bit on the general issues your message touched on instead. If you have more questions (preferably open-ended ones that promote reasoned thought and discussion), you're welcome to ask them and I will try to answer as I have time.
Speaking more generally, I am wondering how to incorporate some of the comments (not only yours) seeking not just more consultation, but more setting forth by board members of their "true positions" as Sj put it. This latter expectation strikes me as running counter to the obviously strong expectation that we should be representing the community, however that is defined.
In order to represent the community, it seems like we should be required to keep an open mind, listening to different perspectives before making a decision. I take a similar approach to maintaining a neutral point of view when writing for Wikipedia, and it works pretty well for me there, so I think it's an important part of our culture. In my short time on the board, I've tried to offer constructive commentary when I can, including personal opinions where appropriate. But making snap judgments and only moving from them by overwhelming force of argument doesn't seem like the right approach, so I'm looking for feedback. What is a good balance between board members forming and advocating their positions, as opposed to reserving judgment until they feel like they've gotten the community's input?
--Michael Snow
Michael Snow wrote:
If you have more questions (preferably open-ended ones that promote reasoned thought and discussion), you're welcome to ask them and I will try to answer as I have time.
For my own part (not pretending to speak for anyone else) the question I would most like to see answered by each of the board members is:
"What in the proposal of the exploratory body do you think was for you the thing that made you support/demurr its implementation by the board directly?"
...and for those who demurred:
"Was there some facet(s) in it that had it been differently constituted in it, you would have endorsed direct inception by board action?"
Yours;
Jussi-ville Heiskanen
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
Michael Snow wrote:
If you have more questions (preferably open-ended ones that promote reasoned thought and discussion), you're welcome to ask them and I will try to answer as I have time.
For my own part (not pretending to speak for anyone else) the question I would most like to see answered by each of the board members is:
"What in the proposal of the exploratory body do you think was for you the thing that made you support/demurr its implementation by the board directly?"
For me, it was the fact that it sought to rely on the board's blessing in order to organize and do its work, which I believe would defeat the purpose. The essence of my opinion is what I wrote a little earlier in response to Lodewijk:
"I think it likely that if the board creates a council, that will end up defining its relationship to the community and the world at large, and it will be perceived as a creature (literally, "thing created") of the board. If so, it would lose nearly all the value hoped for in its development."
--Michael Snow
Michael Snow wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
Michael Snow wrote:
If you have more questions (preferably open-ended ones that promote reasoned thought and discussion), you're welcome to ask them and I will try to answer as I have time.
For my own part (not pretending to speak for anyone else) the question I would most like to see answered by each of the board members is:
"What in the proposal of the exploratory body do you think was for you the thing that made you support/demurr its implementation by the board directly?"
For me, it was the fact that it sought to rely on the board's blessing in order to organize and do its work, which I believe would defeat the purpose. The essence of my opinion is what I wrote a little earlier in response to Lodewijk:
"I think it likely that if the board creates a council, that will end up defining its relationship to the community and the world at large, and it will be perceived as a creature (literally, "thing created") of the board. If so, it would lose nearly all the value hoped for in its development."
Perhaps "create" was a poor choice of words to put in the resolution, and I would have been quite content had the Board substituted more propitious terminology. Whatever becomes of such a Council it must be prepared to work amicably with both the Board and the community. I certainly do not envision a rogue organization that is constantly butting heads with the Board.
An atmosphere based on the premise that community members have the *right* to set up whatever organization they want, or on a Board that dwelling upon its right not to pay attention to what the group says puts too much emphasis on confrontation. Both of these premises may be legally correct, but that does not make them constructive.
Somewhere between outright creation and insurgency there is bound to be a balanced structure.
Ec
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:55 PM, Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net wrote:
Speaking more generally, I am wondering how to incorporate some of the
comments (not only yours) seeking not just more consultation, but more setting forth by board members of their "true positions" as Sj put it. This latter expectation strikes me as running counter to the obviously strong expectation that we should be representing the community, however that is defined.
I assume that everyone in the discussion was doing their best to represent the best interest of the future of the projects (including the community) and that the community representatives were trying to represent the specific interests and views of the community.
I would like to know what the competing issues at hand were, and your take on what is in the community's interest, regarding the reason to - make a quick decision, - move for extensive expert representation rather than relying on advisors,
- change the status of the two newest community seats.
Open debate and friendly criticism among decision makers gives me great faith in process and shows through the texture of discourse behind core decisions. Closed debate and facades of unanimity are frightening, and remind me of deeply closed cultures, not of shining happy families of consensus.
In order to represent the community, it seems like we should be required
to keep an open mind, listening to different perspectives before making a decision.
Agreed.
...making snap judgments and only moving from them by overwhelming force of argument doesn't seem like the right approach, so I'm looking for feedback. What is a good balance between board members forming and advocating their positions, as opposed to reserving judgment until they feel like they've gotten the community's input?
I trust you to both communicate your current position, and to remain open to the community's input to form your community-representative position. Indeed, if you are acting as a true neutral judge on the community's behalf, it is likely that your personal position will regularly differ from your position as community representative. I would hope that your arguments and actions as a representative on the board would align with the latter position, not your personal one.
SJ
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:55 PM, Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net wrote:
In order to represent the community, it seems like we should be required to keep an open mind, listening to different perspectives before making a decision. I take a similar approach to maintaining a neutral point of view when writing for Wikipedia, and it works pretty well for me there, so I think it's an important part of our culture. In my short time on the board, I've tried to offer constructive commentary when I can, including personal opinions where appropriate. But making snap judgments and only moving from them by overwhelming force of argument doesn't seem like the right approach, so I'm looking for feedback. What is a good balance between board members forming and advocating their positions, as opposed to reserving judgment until they feel like they've gotten the community's input?
The two aren't really mutually exclusive. In fact, letting people know where you currently stand is a great way to get more input. Just look at how much community input has risen after this announcement, as compared to before it.
effe iets anders wrote:
Dear Domas, Florence, Frieda, Kat and Michael, (and maybe Jimmy too)
Yesterday the Board announced a major change in the bylaws and power structure. Although I see some positive aspects in the change from my personal point of view (I have still not seen the official changes - as you might know by now, I am for balance - so until then I can't be definitive about that), let me summarize what is happening here: Without asking any feedback from the community before the decision has been made, the Board decides to convert two community seats into chapter seats (it has always been announced that Domas' and Michaels chair were intended to become community seats too) and two expert seats were added, bringing down the community share in the board from 71% to 50% or 30% (depending whether you count chapter seats as community seats) of course assuming that the expert seats will be filled too.
This is quite a huge change with a huge impact on the power structure of the Wikimedia Foundation and therefore of the Wikimedia Movement. And this has been done without asking even advice to the community or the chapters? I find this a very strange procedure for a movement as the ours, and I am for the second time in a row very much disappointed. This time by all community Board Members, who - all of them! - dit NOT contact the community or chapters for a view!
I would very much like an explanation from every board member why they have chosen not to ask the opinion of the community. Because you're not going to sell me the story that this idea was totally new on the board meeting, and that you had no time. Because this was of course already on the agenda of the meeting: "We plan to dedicate saturday to board development and governance. This will include relationships and contractual agreement between board and executive director, possible future council, next elections, professionalization of board, etc..." (quote from Florence's email announcing the coming up Board meeting)
And please don't tell me either that the only "platform" there is, the foundation-l, does not function any more. Although that statement would be true to some extent, but it would highly puzzle me why the heck you have concluded from the new layout of the board to *not* need a Volunteer Council of *any* shape any more. Why you do not even want to encourage the research after the possibilities any more... Let me quote from your FAQ: "* `What does this [The restructuring of the board, LG] mean for the 'wikicouncil?' - The "wikicouncil" and "volunteer council" were part of the board discussions about its restructure. At this stage, we have decided to not take action on the proposal to develop a Volunteer Council. (...)"
I think this restructuring of the Board only shows once more why we need a Wikicouncil. The Board itself is apperently not able to ask input herself on big decisions, and this sets a very bad precedent to the future. Apperently the Board is in need of some kind of council that is, in contrary to the few community members left in the board, able to bring through the questions to the communities. Maybe the VC would not function perfectly, but from what I am seeing now, it would at least do a much better job, because of course this is a very sad day for community involvement in the Wikimedia Movement.
So please, Domas, Florence, Frieda, Kat and Michael, (and maybe Jimmy too), let's just be fair and state your opinion. What is *your* thought about community involvement. Should community only be allowed to say something every two years? Should community only be allowed to say something afterwards (the perfect receipe for ranting, btw)? Do you think community members could be smart people who have a smart opinion about the topics you discuss? Do you think they might come up with arguments you did not think of yet?
If you think so, you should start working, in one way or another, on some kind of platform that is able to improve your attempts to contact the community on major decisions. And no, I have no ready-boiled plan for it, but I do know that there is a catalyst out there, that could come up with a nice result. That catalyst consists of a group of dedicated people, with a wide range of views, that could maybe come up with something that is actually good.
If you think this all is no longer needed, then please say so, then we know what we're up to.
I know it is not customary (unfortunately) any more that single Board members speak up. However, in this case I find it very important not to hear the Boards voice any more, but the individual's voice. Because that is highly important to be able to choose between people in elections and "chapter appointments". Is it not on a short term, then it will be in a year, but there will be a moment, and I would like to know who I am dealing with here. As I said before, I am disappointed in you, and that means that I had a better impression of you.
Regards, and looking forward to all your replies,
Lodewijk
Well,
Point by point:
"This time by all community Board Members, who - all of them! - dit NOT contact the community or chapters for a view! "
-> Whilst it is true that the issue was not raised on this list, I also think there is no way you may know who I am talking to and about what. The concept of having chapters have a say in board composition has been boiling for many months. I know the proposition did not come out of the blue and I know I discussed it with some community members and chapter members in the past. So, whilst I will accept the criticism that we ought to have discussed that here or in other places, I will not accept the criticism that I did not contact *anyone* for a view.
-------
"Should community only be allowed
to say something every two years? Should community only be allowed to say something afterwards (the perfect receipe for ranting, btw)? Do you think community members could be smart people who have a smart opinion about the topics you discuss? Do you think they might come up with arguments you did not think of yet?"
-> I think my frequent attempts to raise issues on this list are sufficient to answer these questions. Some of my attempts were successful, some were near flops. http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Values&action=history It takes a quite serious energy to keep informing and asking for feedback when most of the time, there is little comment.
-------
"you should start working, in one way or another, on some kind of platform that is able to improve your attempts to contact the community on major decisions"
-> Given that I was the one to revive the wikicouncil discussion several times in the past, I think that it is could be sufficient as an answer. I also several times pointed out that we needed a better plateform for discussion. And no, unfortunately, I have no secret recipe either. I wish I have. I still like the wikicouncil idea and I hope it will happen in the future. If not globally, wikicouncil per project might be cool.
-> On another note, we have indicated several times in the past our need for a poll plateform. If my memory is good, Erik is working on something. But yeah, we still have no poll plateform. Now, the question is as to whether this is the job of the board to develop such a plateform, or if the community could somehow participate to the effort. I am very happy to see "reactions" today. It would be great of "reactions" would also transform in "actions".
-> I also remember with great delights the email sent to be the wikicommons wishlist (technical features). I was amazed and impressed. And I invited each community to do the same. Again, a flop. We did not receive anything. One may argue that "why would we write a wish list when features are not implemented afterwards" ? I would answer that communication is never easy. It takes efforts and efforts should come from all parties. Sometimes the effort lead nowhere. Sometimes, it goes somewhere but with delay (much delay, eg the SUL). And sometimes it generates something wonderful.
-> A long time ago, Sj and I started the Quarto. We have received help from many individuals and it was great working together. But let's face it, this type of initiative can only work if enough people are sufficiently committed to them, so that the workload is evenly distributed. We stopped because of unsufficient human support.
-> More recently, last winter, Erik set up a fundraising blog. As far as I could say, it was very successful. There were many posting and many many comments. Following this path, Jay set up a staff blog where news are announced and people have the opportunity to comment. My main two criticisms about that blog is 1) that it is in english only, and 2) that posting on it should go through the filter and correction of the staff (which is why I will probably not post). But this is another venue proposed, and if I look at the amount of comments, it has not met much interest yet. But I am pretty sure it will over time.
-> In the past year and a half, there has been one board retreat, during which people others than board members were invited. We also held an advisory board meeting last summer and another is planned. There were also various opportunities to meet face to face, in particular during chapter meetings, where some board members made the efforts to travel away from their home to meet editors. All these are difficult to handle both because board members have a private life (limited time opportunities) and it of course cost money (and is belatedly criticized by the community), but they are very cool opportunities to discuss things. Far beyond this very mailing list.
What else could we do ? Surveys... Create an island on Second Life... Set up a forum (rather than a list)... Re-create some committees...
etc.
There are many ideas. But only so much time available. And some much energy. There are two main problems in my view.
One is that some board members hardly every communicate with the community. If these were elected community members, I would dare to say that this is the responsibility of the community to make sure they elect members with good communication skills. And the responsibility of the community to contact the board member if they feel the communication is not sufficient.
The second is a way to not only communicate with community, but to make sure that the answer we get is really representative of what the community think. And not simply the grumbles of 2-3 isolated individuals. Discussion on this list provides me with good ideas and allow me to feel very unpopular decisions, but it does not provide me with a good and accurate measure of what the community really think globally. Neither would a wikicouncil.
Ant
Florence Devouard wrote:
<Some very good stuff>
...
There are many ideas. But only so much time available. And some much energy. There are two main problems in my view.
One is that some board members hardly every communicate with the community. If these were elected community members, I would dare to say that this is the responsibility of the community to make sure they elect members with good communication skills. And the responsibility of the community to contact the board member if they feel the communication is not sufficient.
I don't wish to be rude, but there seems to be a pattern emerging, where people joining the board are open and approachable, with good communication skills, but when they join it, soon forget these skills and clam up. As for community contacting the board to urge more communication, I think this what we are exactly doing here.
The second is a way to not only communicate with community, but to make sure that the answer we get is really representative of what the community think. And not simply the grumbles of 2-3 isolated individuals. Discussion on this list provides me with good ideas and allow me to feel very unpopular decisions, but it does not provide me with a good and accurate measure of what the community really think globally. Neither would a wikicouncil.
I think the last point is very well made. However, I do think it is wrong to characterize what is happening now (if that is what you intend to do) as grumbling by isolated individuals. When decisions coming from the board are wildly unexpected and, frankly, puzzling as to their motivations, it is not reasonable to be astonished that people are genuinely and honestly puzzled.
Nor is it grumbling to ask for an explanation for a puzzling and unexpected, out of the blue, decision, and ask for the backround reasoning for the same, on part of the individual board members.
Yours in Wikimedia;
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
Florence Devouard wrote:
<Some very good stuff>
...
There are many ideas. But only so much time available. And some much energy. There are two main problems in my view.
One is that some board members hardly every communicate with the community. If these were elected community members, I would dare to say that this is the responsibility of the community to make sure they elect members with good communication skills. And the responsibility of the community to contact the board member if they feel the communication is not sufficient.
I don't wish to be rude, but there seems to be a pattern emerging, where people joining the board are open and approachable, with good communication skills, but when they join it, soon forget these skills and clam up. As for community contacting the board to urge more communication, I think this what we are exactly doing here.
The second is a way to not only communicate with community, but to make sure that the answer we get is really representative of what the community think. And not simply the grumbles of 2-3 isolated individuals. Discussion on this list provides me with good ideas and allow me to feel very unpopular decisions, but it does not provide me with a good and accurate measure of what the community really think globally. Neither would a wikicouncil.
I think the last point is very well made. However, I do think it is wrong to characterize what is happening now (if that is what you intend to do) as grumbling by isolated individuals.
No, current feedback is clearly not grumbling by isolated individuals :-)
When decisions
coming from the board are wildly unexpected and, frankly, puzzling as to their motivations, it is not reasonable to be astonished that people are genuinely and honestly puzzled.
I am actually not astonished.
What astonishes me is the lack of reaction on the part of chapters. I fully expected a backslash from the community, though I thought it would be on a different substance somehow. However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
Nor is it grumbling to ask for an explanation for a puzzling and unexpected, out of the blue, decision, and ask for the backround reasoning for the same, on part of the individual board members.
Ok. I think I provided my personal reasonning. If it was not sufficient, just tell me and I will comment further in a few days, AFTER the other board members have commented, and WHEN it is time to declare one is a candidate or not for the unique seat for 2008 elections.
Ant
Yours in Wikimedia;
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro
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2008/4/28 Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com:
What astonishes me is the lack of reaction on the part of chapters. I fully expected a backslash from the community, though I thought it would be on a different substance somehow. However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
I assumed there were good reasons for this decision that will be explained at length in due course (I don't require a book-length explanation by noon tomorrow or whatever, but a precis would be of interest).
I have noted that with the wildly disparate levels of activity and organisation in different chapters, precisely how the chapters will choose two board members is something that will probably take a few months to sensibly work out :-) I am glad we have time to get it right, or right enough.
- d.
Hi,
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
Perhaps chapter members are not reacting because they've heard about this restructuring on foundation-l yesterday as everyone else, and they're still trying to figure out whether this is a good thing or not. At least, I am. This proposal looks like a giant leap forward, but I think chapters need time to fully understand its full consequences.
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
Perhaps chapter members are not reacting because they've heard about this restructuring on foundation-l yesterday as everyone else, and they're still trying to figure out whether this is a good thing or not. At least, I am. This proposal looks like a giant leap forward, but I think chapters need time to fully understand its full consequences.
Well, same here (This is my personal opinion not the opinion of my chapter etc.etc.)
I had written a longer email on this yesterday but it focused more on the communication-consultation part of the whole episode, so my substantial response was probably hardly noticeable.
For the record, I am principally supportive of the idea to have chapters appoint members. I'm not yet quite sure about the selection process (who nominates people? chapter boards in corpore or single board members or even all chapter members?) and the 'election' itself (one vote per chapter? if yes, how to be determined etc.) but...
...as Guillaume pointed out quite correctly: We heard of this yesterday too. I first thought I myself might have missed something, but from Lodewijk's, David's and Guillaume's reactions I discern that they, too, have been surprised. It cannot be really expected from us to come up with reactions in less than 48 hours after the first and only notice about it.
You (Florence) said " (...) if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???".
Well, I know why I personally didn't react with such an interjection: I would have considered it pointless. We have a chapters meeting in May where at least most (though unfortunately all) of the chapters will be represented. I think that this is the first opportunity where we can have a real intra-chapters dialogue on this because prior to that, the individual chapter boards have to agree on their own position.
Lack of response is neither a sign of "We're soooo not interested" nor a sign of "We dislike this" but rather a sign of "Okay, we're pretty baffled right now...but give us a few weeks time and we'll somehow get in touch with each other and formulate ideas.".
2008/4/28 Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com:
...as Guillaume pointed out quite correctly: We heard of this yesterday too. I first thought I myself might have missed something, but from Lodewijk's, David's and Guillaume's reactions I discern that they, too, have been surprised.
I certainly hadn't heard a word of it before this.
- d.
2008/4/28 Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com:
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
Perhaps chapter members are not reacting because they've heard about this restructuring on foundation-l yesterday as everyone else, and they're still trying to figure out whether this is a good thing or not. At least, I am. This proposal looks like a giant leap forward, but I think chapters need time to fully understand its full consequences.
Yes. Chapters have been given a new privilege, but it is also a responsibility. Although it is called "chapter seats", it's been said explicitly their purpose is not actually to benefit the chapters. There are few (no?) guidelines given for how chapters should go about this. So, there's a lot of possibilities to explore.
Brianna
2008/4/28 Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com:
What astonishes me is the lack of reaction on the part of chapters. I fully expected a backslash from the community, though I thought it would be on a different substance somehow. However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
Let me make one thing clear here. I was (and am) very negative on the followed procedure. If the other chapter members think like me, they are waiting for the precise resolutions and bylaw changes before they react on the content of them. I have seen some (minor) contradictory statements already, so I think it is better to await the precise situation before reaction on that behalf.
Lodewijk
What astonishes me is the lack of reaction on the part of chapters. I fully expected a backslash from the community, though I thought it would be on a different substance somehow. However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
Where would that feedback take place? To my knowledge, there is no structure in place for inter-chapter communications. Such a structure needs to be put in place (by the central foundation, as the only body able to do so - after asking the chapters individually for comment, first, I'd hope) before the chapters can do anything.
2008/4/28 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
Where would that feedback take place? To my knowledge, there is no structure in place for inter-chapter communications. Such a structure needs to be put in place (by the central foundation, as the only body able to do so - after asking the chapters individually for comment, first, I'd hope) before the chapters can do anything.
There's a private mailing list with chapter and board people on it, internal-l. This list is the public version and anything non-confidential is expected to go here instead.
- d.
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
What astonishes me is the lack of reaction on the part of chapters. I fully expected a backslash from the community, though I thought it would be on a different substance somehow. However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
Where would that feedback take place? To my knowledge, there is no structure in place for inter-chapter communications. Such a structure needs to be put in place (by the central foundation, as the only body able to do so - after asking the chapters individually for comment, first, I'd hope) before the chapters can do anything.
There are, in fact, several channels for this. A mailing list and wiki exist for the "internal group," comprising board, staff, and chapter officials; more specifically, the Chapters Committee exists in large part to facilitate inter-chapter and WMF-chapter coordination. WMF Inc. retains on staff Delphine Ménard as chapters coordinator, a paid position with specifically that mandate.
I support the impression that chapter heads are still working to come to grips with this announcement. I chair the aforementioned committee, and I learned about it when everyone else did. Clearly there's much work yet to be done.
Austin
I think that the reaction of chapters will follow... they are thinking and discussing what it's the sense of this decision.
Personally I think that 4 experts is a big number for the board. Experts are consultants not board members!!!
Probably 2 experts is a number sufficient to cover particular skills but the board it's the *unique* link between the communities and the management, IMHO this new configuration it's a suicide of the board.
Surely the 2 chapters members in the board must replace the experts seats and not the community's seats.
Ilario
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
What astonishes me is the lack of reaction on the part of chapters. I fully expected a backslash from the community, though I thought it would be on a different substance somehow. However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
Ilario Valdelli wrote:
Probably 2 experts is a number sufficient to cover particular skills but the board it's the *unique* link between the communities and the management, IMHO this new configuration it's a suicide of the board.
Right now we have 3 "expert" seats and 2 of them are filled with community members. I would expect in the long run for this to continue to be common.
-------------------------------------------------- From: "Jimmy Wales" jwales@wikia.com Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 2:06 PM To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community
Right now we have 3 "expert" seats and 2 of them are filled with community members. I would expect in the long run for this to continue to be common.
"Community member" but not "choice by community". I think that the half part of the board must be elected by community. A board were 5 or 7 member are not directly elected by the community are not really "wiki".
Senpai
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 7:43 AM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
Personally I think that 4 experts is a big number for the board. Experts are consultants not board members!!!
The part that I think is most missing here is the role of the advisory board, which already exists and is already populated by several people who we could consider to be "Experts" in some fields. This expertise could easily be expanded to include people with business, accounting, management, and other desirable skills.
Some of the recent emails by Angela have painted a slightly depressing picture of the advisory board, and I'm not sure if such was intentional or not. It would seem that no actual "advice" is being solicited from them before the foundation board makes important decisions. Rather then complete board restructuring to include more experts, a path of far less resistance would seem to be to expand the advisory board to include more necessary experts, and then better integrating the advisory board into the foundation decision-making process. On the advisory board you could have far more then 4 "experts", and more experts means more wisdom and a more diverse skillset.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 7:43 AM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
Personally I think that 4 experts is a big number for the board. Experts are consultants not board members!!!
Probably 2 experts is a number sufficient to cover particular skills but the board it's the *unique* link between the communities and the management, IMHO this new configuration it's a suicide of the board.
Surely the 2 chapters members in the board must replace the experts seats and not the community's seats.
You are less wordy than I am... My thoughts exactly.
And I agree with senpai that 'community seats' should continue to mean 'chosen directly by the community'. There are many other ways to choose community members by intermediate representatives...
SJ
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com
wrote:
What astonishes me is the lack of reaction on the part of chapters. I fully expected a backslash from the community, though I thought it would be on a different substance somehow. However, I expected the chapter members to react, if only to share interjections such as "how are we going to decide on the representants ???". The only reaction I saw was the very negative feedback from Lodewijk. I am *genuinely and honestly" puzzled by the near absence of reaction. I do not know what to think of it.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Tue, April 29, 2008 12:43, Ilario Valdelli wrote:
Personally I think that 4 experts is a big number for the board. Experts are consultants not board members!!!
Probably 2 experts is a number sufficient to cover particular skills but the board it's the *unique* link between the communities and the management, IMHO this new configuration it's a suicide of the board.
Surely the 2 chapters members in the board must replace the experts seats and not the community's seats.
Taking my Chapter hat off for a moment, most Boards or organisations - be they major or minor, profit-seeking or charitable - will choose to have 50% (or more) of their board as non-executives (ie external) who bring useful skills, expertise and contacts to the table.
The WMF of recent history has, I would suggest without intending any disrespect, been dire in this respect as it has elected people who had little or no relevant skills in the general or strategic management of a world-wide organisation, and some of the past actions / decisions of the Board have suffered because of that.
Consultants may be experts in some things, but they are never experts in how *your* organisation works, just on organisations in general (I myself worked in business consultancy for many years and I would never profess to fully understand the 'internals' of any company in detail - my skill was in understanding what questions needed to be asked and what to make of the answers.)
Whether we like it or now, Wikimedia needs a controlling body, and that body is the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia projects are way too big and important to have that body be a spare-time bedroom activity and the members of the Board should *all* have relevant expertise (so far as I am concerned) if we want to see the projects continue their stellar growth rate in the future.
Yes, of course I want to see experienced editors and wikimedians on the Board, but that shouldn't (again imho) mean that someone without at least some skills should be there.
(And no, I knew nothing about this beforehand, and yes, I did query some aspects when I did)
Alison Wheeler
Alison Wheeler wrote:
The WMF of recent history has, I would suggest without intending any disrespect, been dire in this respect as it has elected people who had little or no relevant skills in the general or strategic management of a world-wide organisation, and some of the past actions / decisions of the Board have suffered because of that.
I think that most (or possibly) all members of the board are willing to accept that sort of criticism without it being thought of as disrespectful in the least.
One of the things that the board has been very good about in recent months is internal growth and understanding that there are skills that we need to recruit to the board.
--Jimbo
Alison Wheeler wrote:
On Tue, April 29, 2008 12:43, Ilario Valdelli wrote:
Personally I think that 4 experts is a big number for the board. Experts are consultants not board members!!!
Probably 2 experts is a number sufficient to cover particular skills but the board it's the *unique* link between the communities and the management, IMHO this new configuration it's a suicide of the board.
Surely the 2 chapters members in the board must replace the experts seats and not the community's seats.
Taking my Chapter hat off for a moment, most Boards or organisations - be they major or minor, profit-seeking or charitable - will choose to have 50% (or more) of their board as non-executives (ie external) who bring useful skills, expertise and contacts to the table.
This is certainly not true of other non-profit organizations in the free-culture movement (which we happen to be a part of).
To take two of the larger examples,
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has 10 members of its Board of Directors[1]; all ten have prior experience strongly relevant to the foundation's mission (digital civil liberties, free culture, copyright reform, etc.). In addition, at least eight have strong prior advocacy credentials. There are no technocrats who are there simply because of their experience in some managerial or executive aspect of nonprofits, and only a minority is even arguably there just for their professional (mission-related) expertise without also having a record of agitating for EFF-type causes. Of course, they have staff to handle other things, but the staff are not on the Board of Directors.
Software in the Public Interest, the parent project of Debian, is *100%* elected by the Debian developers. They may choose to elect anyone, of course, but generally elect community members. Of the 9 board members[2], at least 6 are Debian developers, and at least 7 have a strong history of free-software development.
-Mark
[1] http://www.eff.org/about/board [2] http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/board
Delirium wrote:
Software in the Public Interest, the parent project of Debian, is *100%* elected by the Debian developers. They may choose to elect anyone, of course, but generally elect community members. Of the 9 board members[2], at least 6 are Debian developers, and at least 7 have a strong history of free-software development.
Err, that was sloppy wording on my part; though Debian is their largest member project, they're elected by all their member projects, which include others such as Drupal. Nonetheless the election outcomes are still as summarized above. (I suppose this is like assuming Wikipedia is the only important Wikimedia project. ;-))
-Mark
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 7:15 PM, Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com wrote:
Taking my Chapter hat off for a moment, most Boards or organisations - be they major or minor, profit-seeking or charitable - will choose to have 50% (or more) of their board as non-executives (ie external) who bring useful skills, expertise and contacts to the table.
What do you mean by non-executive/external? None of the board of the WMF is employed by the foundation, so in that sense you can say all are "non-executive/external". But I'd like to see examples of non-profit boards in particular (the skills for for-profit board members are IMO very different) which fit the majority you're referring to.
Hello,
I have stated multiple time, that I'm non-contributing user of Wikipedia. It is quite unpopular here, I know. I could never vote in elections, unless exclusions were done ( I don't have 400 edits on any project ). My English writing skills are satisfactory for technical communication, can get worse for various other prose and poems, and usually aligns with writing style of last book read. :)
Now that I can't comfortably spend my hours and days and years editing Wikipedia, I end up working on technology instead - and used to do baby sitting of the cluster. Heck, stress levels used to be so high, I'd wake up at night and go check if everything was running well (actually, once hit a power outage that way :).
I used to hear multiple times back then, I hear same nowadays - I'm supposed to work for editors. Replies to what I say on IRC come back with the fact that I work for editors, replies to what I write in mailing lists tell I'm supposed to work for editors.
And, by the way, I don't. I'm entirely value centric. I work for our mission and our values, and editors are my peers. I don't work for editors, editors don't work for me. We help each other to achieve the common goal.
Actually, Community and Foundation should be acting as peers too. Board is not seen as governing body of Community. Foundation should be seen as facilitator, "encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge". Board should ensure, that Foundation does what it is supposed to do.
Still, there're multiple issues in what Foundation does - multilingual content goes beyond borders of enwiki, free of charge requires sustainability of operations, growth needs outreach besides editing, development and distribution asks for partnerships too.
So far, chapters have been doing great job (and showing even more potential) in outreach and partnerships. Though it is commonly seen that we provide power to them, we merely ask for their experience. Board is not a senate, where representation matters entirely and most of politics at senates are about composition of factions. Board is a working group, that strives to work on consensus, bringing experience from all parties, to assist operating the organization. And, let me remind, organization that does not govern the Community, but acts as a peer, providing legal, tech, communications infrastructure for community.
If Community or Communities need it, of course it is possible to raise Volunteer Council, or any other body to facilitate cross- project governance or communication or anything else needed. Foundation should stay encouraging and assisting, not managing communities.
There were suggestions here that board members should have hands-on experience editing the site. If I'd be sarcastic, I'd sure reply that they also need hands-on experience on fundraising, software development, performance engineering, technology operations, accounting, legal, PR, etc , and that would leave us with just few people from this list.
Still, our broader community is everyone who invests their time and emotions into success of our mission. I consider myself part of such community, and if I'd picky, I'd feel underrepresented by election process.
Still, folks, though our mission is great and important, one of key issues in success is satisfaction in what we're all doing. That includes good faith.
BR,
2008/4/30 Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com:
I have stated multiple time, that I'm non-contributing user of Wikipedia. It is quite unpopular here, I know. I could never vote in elections, unless exclusions were done ( I don't have 400 edits on any project ).
Hmmmm. What do you think would be a suitable criterion to allow votes from our (ridiculously valuable) technical volunteers? Good devs and volunteer sysadmins (a phrase I'd never thought would be a reality before I saw it happening on Wikimedia) are much rarer than good content contributors.
- d.
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:23 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Hmmmm. What do you think would be a suitable criterion to allow votes from our (ridiculously valuable) technical volunteers? Good devs and volunteer sysadmins (a phrase I'd never thought would be a reality before I saw it happening on Wikimedia) are much rarer than good content contributors.
Even it is not a question to me: A number of Subversion commits. They varies like articles -- from minor edits to major ones. And there is a list which gathers all of those informations (one with the biggest archive).
Hi,
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:23 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Hmmmm. What do you think would be a suitable criterion to allow votes from our (ridiculously valuable) technical volunteers? Good devs and volunteer sysadmins (a phrase I'd never thought would be a reality before I saw it happening on Wikimedia) are much rarer than good content contributors.
Even it is not a question to me: A number of Subversion commits. They varies like articles -- from minor edits to major ones. And there is a list which gathers all of those informations (one with the biggest archive).
That might work for MediaWiki developers, but not necessarily for system administrators.
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:45 PM, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com wrote:
That might work for MediaWiki developers, but not necessarily for system administrators.
Actually, a part of administration is also done by committing changes via Subversion. However, admins of servers (as well as Office staff should have right to vote by default.
I am also thinking that activity on mailing lists should be measured, too. At least, it is valuable as any longer post on a talk page. The same is for blogs aggregated to Planet Wikimedia and Open Wiki Blog Planet. However, the most of contributors to mailing lists and to the aggregators are, also, active at the projects.
Involvement in non-Wikimedia, but very close and to Wikimedia useful projects, like Betawiki and OmegaWiki are -- should be also counted.
While it may look complex, I think that it is possible to make fair rules which may cover all of the involvement in achieving Wikimedia goals.
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
I am also thinking that activity on mailing lists should be measured, too.
Oh no. Please.
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 3:12 PM, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
I am also thinking that activity on mailing lists should be measured, too.
Oh no. Please.
:) Keep in mind that talk pages often contain much more stupid content than mailing lists. And such stupid contributions are counted for voting, while contributions to the lists are not.
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
:) Keep in mind that talk pages often contain much more stupid content than mailing lists. And such stupid contributions are counted for voting, while contributions to the lists are not.
"This is sooo unfair, I have been moderated in the relevant time period and thus I couldn't send 20 posts per day, now I'm going to be uneligible to vote!"
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 3:41 PM, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
:) Keep in mind that talk pages often contain much more stupid content than mailing lists. And such stupid contributions are counted for voting, while contributions to the lists are not.
"This is sooo unfair, I have been moderated in the relevant time period and thus I couldn't send 20 posts per day, now I'm going to be uneligible to vote!"
:)) If 50 edits are enough, then 50 posts should be enough. This means something around one email per three days. Or less than three days of emailing before moderation started :)
Hoi, Let us be practical. There are two ways of doing this; either you insist on a measurement for the number of commits - this has to be developed and as it is for a REALLY small group of people it is expensive or you create a group and call it something like SVN committer and all committers can vote. This too takes some work but seems to me to be much less expensive. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:23 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Hmmmm. What do you think would be a suitable criterion to allow votes from our (ridiculously valuable) technical volunteers? Good devs and volunteer sysadmins (a phrase I'd never thought would be a reality before I saw it happening on Wikimedia) are much rarer than good content contributors.
Even it is not a question to me: A number of Subversion commits. They varies like articles -- from minor edits to major ones. And there is a list which gathers all of those informations (one with the biggest archive).
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2008/4/30 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Let us be practical. There are two ways of doing this; either you insist on a measurement for the number of commits - this has to be developed and as it is for a REALLY small group of people it is expensive or you create a group and call it something like SVN committer and all committers can vote. This too takes some work but seems to me to be much less expensive.
A question like "Brion, do you have a list of your current and recent volunteer sysadmin/dev minions?" might be enough for a manageable group, at least this time around - it won't be a lot of people at all, but enfranchising them would be a good thing.
- d.
Hi!
A question like "Brion, do you have a list of your current and recent volunteer sysadmin/dev minions?" might be enough for a manageable group, at least this time around - it won't be a lot of people at all, but enfranchising them would be a good thing.
thats what we used to do for past elections. :) anyway, the issue is that there're lots of people who do us good, that does not get measured in number of edits.
2008/4/30 Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com:
A question like "Brion, do you have a list of your current and recent volunteer sysadmin/dev minions?" might be enough for a manageable group, at least this time around - it won't be a lot of people at all, but enfranchising them would be a good thing.
thats what we used to do for past elections. :)
If that'll work, and the election committee are fine with it, then good!
anyway, the issue is that there're lots of people who do us good, that does not get measured in number of edits.
Yes - people who inarguably contribute greatly. What other groups have we missed who should be enfranchised? (e.g. do BetaWiki contributors consider themselves part of the Wikimedia community?)
- d.
Hoi, The Betawiki contributors are typically also contributors to WMF projects. There are some exceptions to that rule. The ones that I know are not likely to be interested to vote for a board member of the WMF.
I am really pleased that Betawiki is considered in this way. Thank you. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 2:33 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/4/30 Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com:
A question like "Brion, do you have a list of your current and recent volunteer sysadmin/dev minions?" might be enough for a manageable group, at least this time around - it won't be a lot of people at
all,
but enfranchising them would be a good thing.
thats what we used to do for past elections. :)
If that'll work, and the election committee are fine with it, then good!
anyway, the issue is that there're lots of people who do us good, that does not get measured in number of edits.
Yes - people who inarguably contribute greatly. What other groups have we missed who should be enfranchised? (e.g. do BetaWiki contributors consider themselves part of the Wikimedia community?)
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:46 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Let us be practical. There are two ways of doing this; either you insist on a measurement for the number of commits - this has to be developed and as it is for a REALLY small group of people it is expensive or you create a group and call it something like SVN committer and all committers can vote. This too takes some work but seems to me to be much less expensive.
Maybe your approach is better... I was just thinking from the perspective of my involvement in Subversion commits. If this is the only involvement in WM projects which I have, I shouldn't be qualified to vote. (BTW, I am administrating sr.planet through Subversion, which means that I need to change config file less than once per month.)
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:23 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/4/30 Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com:
I have stated multiple time, that I'm non-contributing user of Wikipedia. It is quite unpopular here, I know. I could never vote in elections, unless exclusions were done ( I don't have 400 edits on any project ).
Hmmmm. What do you think would be a suitable criterion to allow votes from our (ridiculously valuable) technical volunteers? Good devs and volunteer sysadmins (a phrase I'd never thought would be a reality before I saw it happening on Wikimedia) are much rarer than good content contributors.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Why not add the svn commit count to the edit count :)
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 4:42 PM, Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:23 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/4/30 Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com:
I have stated multiple time, that I'm non-contributing user of Wikipedia. It is quite unpopular here, I know. I could never vote in elections, unless exclusions were done ( I don't have 400 edits on any project ).
Hmmmm. What do you think would be a suitable criterion to allow votes from our (ridiculously valuable) technical volunteers? Good devs and volunteer sysadmins (a phrase I'd never thought would be a reality before I saw it happening on Wikimedia) are much rarer than good content contributors.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Why not add the svn commit count to the edit count :)
Oh well that was already suggested earlier.
Bryan
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Domas Mituzas wrote: | Hello, | | I have stated multiple time, that I'm non-contributing user of | Wikipedia. It is quite unpopular here, I know. | I could never vote in elections, unless exclusions were done ( I | don't have 400 edits on any project ). | My English writing skills are satisfactory for technical | communication, can get worse for various other prose and poems, and | usually aligns with writing style of last book read. :) | I just had a thought.
There's another class of contributor--the office volunteer or intern. These people often have no edits or very few, but have contributed in ways such as scanning documents, sending out mail, or organizing Mike Godwin's legal files :).
We've had people who have helped us who have wanted to help the mission because they have enjoyed using our projects as a resource, but have not contributed in any way in edit counts or SVN commits. I believe that some of the chapters also have individuals under this category. Should they be included despite the fact that they're not members of any one of our numerous editing communities?
(Incedentally, we're fortunate to have help in the office at present who have contributed to the wikis...but in the past, things have been different.)
- -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator
Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Phone: 415.839.6885 Fax: 415.882.0495
E-Mail: cary@wikimedia.org
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 4:49 AM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com wrote:
I used to hear multiple times back then, I hear same nowadays - I'm
supposed to work for editors. Replies to what I say on IRC come back with the fact that I work for editors, replies to what I write in mailing lists tell I'm supposed to work for editors.
Interesting! For the record, I don't consider 'editors' to be privileged community members any more than the hacker who writes some cool wikipedia-on-ipod project, or the blogger who links to one bizarre wikipedia article a day. (I think our voting policies are broken in this way, since evan the most black-hearted troll, and anyone who would care to annoy an election, could make a few hundred edits)
And, by the way, I don't. I'm entirely value centric. I work for our mission and our values, and editors are my peers. I don't work for editors, editors don't work for me. We help each other to achieve the common goal.
Right on.
Actually, Community and Foundation should be acting as peers too. Board is not seen as governing body of Community. Foundation should be seen as facilitator, "encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge". Board should ensure, that Foundation does what it is supposed to do.
I agree completely.
There were suggestions here that board members should have hands-on
experience editing the site.
I hope my statements weren't interpreted this way. Board members should have a real stake in the projects and their success, preferably people who have given of their time, energy, and enthusiasm to support the projects -- not simply be people who happen to be friendly with the previous Board for long enough to make it onto a list of potentials, and happen to have useful skills.
Still, our broader community is everyone who invests their time and emotions into success of our mission. I consider myself part of such community, and if I'd picky, I'd feel underrepresented by election process.
Yes. You are, and you are.
SJ
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org