As I am waiting for the result to be certified, I would like to ask all of you to send me your thoughts -- privately or publicly -- on what you think the key priorities should be for my work as Board member. For instance, is there a particular issue with the chapter/WMF relation that you feel should be addressed? Is the financial reporting lacking? Do you find some organization processes difficult to understand? Are there legal problems that you feel have not received the right amount of attention? Technical issues that should be prioritized?
Before responding, please note that the Board is not supposed to do operational work; that is, it merely oversees and informs the work of Foundation staff, publishes and approves reports, and makes key structural and strategic decisions. Here is a simple overview of typical Board responsibilities: http://www.managementhelp.org/boards/brdrspon.htm
The Wikimedia Board, especially in this time of transition, is a bit more active than most, but it is not an operational entitity. So I won't fix the servers for you or block a vandal on a wiki outside regular admin duties. :-) But I can try to help (!) make sure that tasks are properly resourced, that reporting from the Board happens in a timely fashion, etc.
And no, I won't forget that I'm not the only Board member ;-). All this needs to be coordinated properly and ideally find consensus. But your responses will help me in organizing my part of the work. I can also suggest some of this information for the agenda in the coming Board retreat.
Thanks in advance for any and all responses and flames. ;-)
On 9/24/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
As I am waiting for the result to be certified, I would like to ask all of you to send me your thoughts -- privately or publicly -- on what you think the key priorities should be for my work as Board member.
Hi Erik,
congrats for the results of this election. You are entering a board that has already been established with people committed to Wikimedia. Your key priorities should be a friendly and cooperative integration into that board. It is my understanding that you can count on the assistance of many people working in different projects. I wish you all the best for this task.
Mathias
On 9/24/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
As I am waiting for the result to be certified, I would like to ask all of you to send me your thoughts -- privately or publicly -- on what you think the key priorities should be for my work as Board member.
A few thoughts - I realise there are lots of things missing from this list, but this should provide a starting point:
Make the press aware that there's more to Wikimedia than Wikipedia. Make sure committees aren't going astray. In conjunction with the chapter's committee, make sure every chapter is allowed official recognition and have a clear process for obtaining that (Wikimedia UK is still denied this recognition). Expand the Board via election (possibly Wikicouncil style elections) and not via appointment. Add an advisory Board. Make sure there's clear guidance and process for people wanting to use Wikimedia logos internally and externally, including derivatives on the projects. Update and revise the bylaws with community input. Ensure the tech committee have the authority to buy necessary hardware. Ensure all Board members have full access to private wikis and mailing lists when needed (this isn't the same as expecting them to follow all of those lists).
Angela
On 24/09/06, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
Make the press aware that there's more to Wikimedia than Wikipedia.
Lots of luck on this one. I find it hard enough when talking to non-English-speaking journalists to get across to them that there's a Wikipedia in their language and it's not all in English ...
Make sure committees aren't going astray.
Process should follow fairly obviously from basic policy/principles or it's too hard to follow. Committees are process on top of the core policies. Process needs to be reasonably obvious (or at least easily derived).
In conjunction with the chapter's committee, make sure every chapter is allowed official recognition and have a clear process for obtaining that (Wikimedia UK is still denied this recognition).
That's because we're not a charity as yet - Wiki Educational Resources Limited is still legally a private company run by Alison, James, Jon, Andrew and me, and that's not really a suitable vehicle for the "Wikimedia UK" brandname.
*twiddles fingers waiting for Charity Commissioner*
Ensure the tech committee have the authority to buy necessary hardware. Ensure all Board members have full access to private wikis and mailing lists when needed (this isn't the same as expecting them to follow all of those lists).
This shouldn't require new rules - a simple "wtf" should be adequate when carefully applied.
- d.
-- Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/24/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
As I am waiting for the result to be certified, I would like to ask all of you to send me your thoughts -- privately or publicly -- on what you think the key priorities should be for my work as Board member.
A few thoughts - I realise there are lots of things missing from this list, but this should provide a starting point: ... Make sure committees aren't going astray.
Only where the big picture goals of the foundation are concerned; the Foundation is NOT AT ALL in the business of community governance. Nor should it ever for legal reasons (we would lose any pretense of ISP protections if we did, of course, IANAL).
In conjunction with the chapter's committee, make sure every chapter is allowed official recognition and have a clear process for obtaining that (Wikimedia UK is still denied this recognition).
Perhaps through a WikiCouncil, yes.
Expand the Board via election (possibly Wikicouncil style elections) and not via appointment.
Elections alone (unless they require certain expertise for the candidate to run) will not result in a board that has the talents needed to effectively oversee the operations of the foundation. For example, the Treasurer of the board would need to have some expertise in the financial aspects of running a non-profit. Other board members will need expertise in the professional aspects of fundraising. Some members will need to be cognizant of the legal aspects of running a foundation. And on and on. An almost completely amateur board is a really, really, bad idea.
The foundation is not a wiki, nor is it a democracy. We MUST make sure our board has the right mix of people who actually know how a non-profit foundation should be run. Of course, there will always be room for up to one third (IMO) of an expanded board whose area of interest is to represent the community of editors. But having a whole board composed of mostly those type of people would be a recipe for disaster if they, as a group, did not have the right mix of expertise.
That said, I do think it would be interesting to explore how a WikiCouncil could act in an advisory capacity and even be a place for community reps to be developed to the point where they would make great community reps on the board. There might even be a direct and legal link between a WikiCouncil and the community reps on the board. But a legal review is needed before such a link is established (again, we don't want to lose our ISP protections).
Add an advisory Board.
*nod* but do understand that those type of bodies are typically a list of famous people who are very busy with other things and have limited time to meet or give input to the regular board. So we should not pretend that having experts there is a substitute for not having experts on the regular board.
... Update and revise the bylaws with community input.
That is what the community reps on the board are for. They gather the input and present that to the full board. Then the full board takes the report of the community rep into consideration.
Ensure the tech committee have the authority to buy necessary hardware.
Only through an established budget process. But once a budget is passed by the board, then the tech committee should be able to spend to that limit on hardware with the board only acting in an oversight capacity.
Ensure all Board members have full access to private wikis and mailing lists when needed (this isn't the same as expecting them to follow all of those lists).
That will lead to overlapping coverage by board members in some areas and no coverage in others. Instead, it would be better if each board member were assigned to be a liaison to particular committees; they would then have access to that committee's private wikis and mailing lists. Also, each committee should be creating reports that are posted on InternalWiki. Once the board approves of the report, then all or at least part of those reports would be put on a public wiki.
Eventually, I would like us to get rid of all the private wikis and just use internal but with user group-based access controls on who can read what (a feature that Brion says will be difficult to implement but something I think is very important for us to have). Having all these separate wikis makes communication between the various parts of the foundation unnecessarily difficult. Having every board member try to monitor everything is not an answer either.
-- mav
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On 24/09/06, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Eventually, I would like us to get rid of all the private wikis and just use internal but with user group-based access controls on who can read what (a feature that Brion says will be difficult to implement but something I think is very important for us to have).
This is something corporate users keep asking for. Possibly there are implementations out there that don't make Brion cough up a hairball.
Having all these separate wikis makes communication between the various parts of the foundation unnecessarily difficult.
I certainly don't look at every wiki and every list I have access to for this reason.
Having every board member try to monitor everything is not an answer either.
Summaries? Though no-one's stepped up from the comcom to do a weekly summary of wmfcc-l as yet, though all being in agreement it would be a good idea. (I'm thinking something similar to software list summaries like 'Kernel Traffic' or 'Wine Traffic'.) I might try just to see what it requires, but don't hold me to that.
- d.
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Expand the Board via election (possibly Wikicouncil style elections) and not via appointment.
Elections alone (unless they require certain expertise for the candidate to run) will not result in a board that has the talents needed to effectively oversee the operations of the foundation. For example, the Treasurer of the board would need to have some expertise in the financial aspects of running a non-profit. Other board members will need expertise in the professional aspects of fundraising. Some members will need to be cognizant of the legal aspects of running a foundation. And on and on. An almost completely amateur board is a really, really, bad idea.
The foundation is not a wiki, nor is it a democracy. We MUST make sure our board has the right mix of people who actually know how a non-profit foundation should be run. Of course, there will always be room for up to one third (IMO) of an expanded board whose area of interest is to represent the community of editors. But having a whole board composed of mostly those type of people would be a recipe for disaster if they, as a group, did not have the right mix of expertise.
While I agree from an operational/legal viewpoint that we should have people on the board who can do the technical work that needs to be done, my concern with having those people be a majority is that a board is not *only* a technical body (although ideally it should function as such), but also legally the controlling body. Thus I'm wary of letting a majority of the board, or even anything close to that, become comprised of people who aren't on the board primarily because they care so strongly about the project that they've decided to involve themselves in it. In fact it seems odd that we would want anyone not a Wikimedian on the board at all, except to fill some very narrow role---why would someone who has apparently chosen not to join our very-easy-to-join project be a good choice for overseeing it?
Now of course the Board doesn't actually control the community, only the legal foundations and servers, but if a group of essentially outsiders became a majority and chose to take it in a direction the community disagreed with, it would cause significant chaos as the community would be forced to waste time either pushing back against them or forking---always a possibility, but a disruptive one that results in a lot of needless delay in progress.
We have something like tens of thousands of Wikipedians (hundreds of thousands?), so I'm skeptical that the skills we're looking for don't exist anywhere in our community.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Thus I'm wary of letting a majority of the board, or even anything close to that, become comprised of people who aren't on the board primarily because they care so strongly about the project that they've decided to involve themselves in it.
I agree with you about this.
But I think there is a good answer to this:
In fact it seems odd that we would want anyone not a Wikimedian on the board at all, except to fill some very narrow role---why would someone who has apparently chosen not to join our very-easy-to-join project be a good choice for overseeing it?
The board is not and should not be viewed as a *management* body. The board is about preserving our principles and values in the long term, helping the organization to prosper and thrive, etc.
There are people who are incredible and amazing people, people who have proven through act and deed in many different venues that they can be trusted to act as wise stewards of our heritage and who may have skills and connections which are entirely impossible to replicate within the community.
Now of course the Board doesn't actually control the community, only the legal foundations and servers, but if a group of essentially outsiders became a majority and chose to take it in a direction the community disagreed with, it would cause significant chaos as the community would be forced to waste time either pushing back against them or forking---always a possibility, but a disruptive one that results in a lot of needless delay in progress.
Yes, I think that's right, but I consider this a very remote possibility to be honest. There is no support from anyone in turning the board over to "a group of essentially outsiders".
We have something like tens of thousands of Wikipedians (hundreds of thousands?), so I'm skeptical that the skills we're looking for don't exist anywhere in our community.
Larry Lessig is not a Wikipedian. Mitch Kapor is a Wikipedian, but not very active. There are other examples of people who are wild about our work who could be amazing board members, but who, because their careers do not involve editing Wikipedia, have not become members of our community. But they have skills, contacts, connections, experiences that we do not have in our community.
Remember, we are considering a much-expanded board. I think a healthy board should include a diversity of people, *including* some who are *deliberately* chosen to be from outside our community, to help us avoid groupthink and "not invented here".
--Jimbo
A "much-expanded board", or having many boards of similar size! If the idea of the Board of Trustees is cultural preservation, then perhaps we could have a Board of Visionaries, or an Advisory Board.
On 9/24/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Delirium wrote:
Thus I'm wary of letting a majority of the board, or even anything close to that, become comprised of people who aren't on the board primarily because they care so strongly about the project that they've decided to involve themselves in it.
I agree with you about this.
But I think there is a good answer to this:
In fact it seems odd that we would want anyone not a Wikimedian on the board at all, except to fill some very narrow role---why would someone who has apparently chosen not to join our very-easy-to-join project be a good choice for overseeing it?
The board is not and should not be viewed as a *management* body. The board is about preserving our principles and values in the long term, helping the organization to prosper and thrive, etc.
There are people who are incredible and amazing people, people who have proven through act and deed in many different venues that they can be trusted to act as wise stewards of our heritage and who may have skills and connections which are entirely impossible to replicate within the community.
Now of course the Board doesn't actually control the community, only the legal foundations and servers, but if a group of essentially outsiders became a majority and chose to take it in a direction the community disagreed with, it would cause significant chaos as the community would be forced to waste time either pushing back against them or forking---always a possibility, but a disruptive one that results in a lot of needless delay in progress.
Yes, I think that's right, but I consider this a very remote possibility to be honest. There is no support from anyone in turning the board over to "a group of essentially outsiders".
We have something like tens of thousands of Wikipedians (hundreds of thousands?), so I'm skeptical that the skills we're looking for don't exist anywhere in our community.
Larry Lessig is not a Wikipedian. Mitch Kapor is a Wikipedian, but not very active. There are other examples of people who are wild about our work who could be amazing board members, but who, because their careers do not involve editing Wikipedia, have not become members of our community. But they have skills, contacts, connections, experiences that we do not have in our community.
Remember, we are considering a much-expanded board. I think a healthy board should include a diversity of people, *including* some who are *deliberately* chosen to be from outside our community, to help us avoid groupthink and "not invented here".
--Jimbo
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 9/24/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The board is not and should not be viewed as a *management* body. The board is about preserving our principles and values in the long term, helping the organization to prosper and thrive, etc.
Does this mean that en.wikipedia will be allowed to run the arbcom elections this year without board involvement?
geni wrote:
On 9/24/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The board is not and should not be viewed as a *management* body. The board is about preserving our principles and values in the long term, helping the organization to prosper and thrive, etc.
Does this mean that en.wikipedia will be allowed to run the arbcom elections this year without board involvement?
the en.wikipedia never run arbcom election with board involvement. it run arbcom election with Jimbo involvement.
That's different
Ant
On 9/24/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
the en.wikipedia never run arbcom election with board involvement. it run arbcom election with Jimbo involvement.
That's different
Not for the people on the receiving end it isn't.
If it makes you happier I will rephrase the question:
Does this mean that en.wikipedia will be allowed to run the arbcom elections this year without board involvement?
I could do with an answer by October the first and if the answer is no I could do with details of what level of involvement.
On a related note will special:boardvote be available?
--- geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/24/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
the en.wikipedia never run arbcom election with
board involvement.
it run arbcom election with Jimbo involvement.
That's different
Not for the people on the receiving end it isn't.
I agree with Anthere here. The involvment of a single board member is not the same as the involment of the Board.
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--- Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/24/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
the en.wikipedia never run arbcom election with
board involvement.
it run arbcom election with Jimbo involvement.
That's different
Not for the people on the receiving end it isn't.
I agree with Anthere here. The involvment of a single board member is not the same as the involment of the Board.
Sorry my message sent before I was done :P
The first step to making a change in these internal elections is establishing consensus within the community. I am not sure what kind of response you are looking for here. But I would expect you would have nothing but support from everyone on this list in carring out the consensus desicion at en.WP regarding arbcom elections.
Birgitte SB
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On 9/25/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Sorry my message sent before I was done :P
The first step to making a change in these internal elections is establishing consensus within the community.
I know how to set up and run elections.
I am not sure what kind of response you are looking for here.
An answer to my question although it appears that Jimbo is the only one who can answer it
But I would expect you would have nothing but support from everyone on this list in carring out the consensus desicion at en.WP regarding arbcom elections.
I didn't get that last time I have little reason to believe you would challenge Jimbo this time.
Last time around we ended up running the elections under rather less than ideal conditions. I would rather we didn't have a repeat. As part of that I need to know what role (if any) jimbo and the board plan to play.
--- geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/25/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Sorry my message sent before I was done :P
The first step to making a change in these
internal
elections is establishing consensus within the community.
I know how to set up and run elections.
I am not sure what kind of response you are looking for here.
An answer to my question although it appears that Jimbo is the only one who can answer it
But I would expect you would have nothing but support from everyone on this
list in
carring out the consensus desicion at en.WP
regarding
arbcom elections.
I didn't get that last time I have little reason to believe you would challenge Jimbo this time.
I will challenge any ideas or positions I disagree with no matter who they come from. I don't really get into challenging people, however.
Last time around we ended up running the elections under rather less than ideal conditions. I would rather we didn't have a repeat. As part of that I need to know what role (if any) jimbo and the board plan to play.
I really don't know the history there (that is just a disclaimer not a request). Still I think the best approach is start within the community and gather consensus on what is wanted internally and then to come here for support. A strong idea of what en.WP *does* want will be much easier to gather support for than a negative position (i.e. no Jimbo). So I encourage you to try work on coming to a positive position internally at en.WP. I think it would be really great to see a large diverse community like en.WP come to consensus on how to hold an internal election. It would be a concrete example for everyone interested in the "indirect election" format to evaluate.
Birgitte SB
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On 9/25/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I really don't know the history there (that is just a disclaimer not a request). Still I think the best approach is start within the community and gather consensus on what is wanted internally and then to come here for support.
No we tried that last time. The result was messy.
A strong idea of what en.WP *does* want will be much easier to gather support for than a negative position (i.e. no Jimbo).
Gather support? If I go to the effort of putting together something on en that gets at least acceptance from most people I do not then want to be in the position of having to gather support for something I have already put together at rather a lot of effort into.
So I encourage you to try work on coming to a positive position internally at en.WP. I think it would be really great to see a large diverse community like en.WP come to consensus on how to hold an internal election.
I can't do that if people know that anything they put together can be just brushed aside
It would be a concrete example for everyone interested in the "indirect election" format to evaluate.
No it would not be. Unfortunately historically this has tended to be the case but the ideal arbcom is not the ideal group of people to represent en.wikipedia.
geni wrote:
On 9/24/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
the en.wikipedia never run arbcom election with board involvement. it run arbcom election with Jimbo involvement.
That's different
Not for the people on the receiving end it isn't.
Well, to my memory, we never discussed the arbcom elections at a board level. It is not listed in any board meeting minutes afaik. It is not mentionned in any resolutions passed by the board.
As far as I am concerned, the board was never involved.
It is not a board issue.
If it makes you happier I will rephrase the question:
Does this mean that en.wikipedia will be allowed to run the arbcom elections this year without board involvement?
I'll be happy to ask the board if you are interested. I know I was not involved in the past years and I have no reason to get involved this year. I am totally convinced Tim will not see that as a board issue. Likely, Michael will not either. That makes a majority of us.
But I'll be glad to hear from Jimbo and Erik whether they consider english wikipedia arbcom elections being a board issue.
I could do with an answer by October the first and if the answer is no I could do with details of what level of involvement.
We'll be waiting for Erik and Jimbo comment.
On a related note will special:boardvote be available?
You should ask Brion or Tim for this.
On 9/25/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
You should ask Brion or Tim for this.
I thought stewards could turn it on?
On 9/25/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
But I'll be glad to hear from Jimbo and Erik whether they consider english wikipedia arbcom elections being a board issue.
Absolutely not.
The elections for arbcom will most likely be run again this year precisely as last year.
geni wrote:
On 9/24/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
the en.wikipedia never run arbcom election with board involvement. it run arbcom election with Jimbo involvement.
That's different
Not for the people on the receiving end it isn't.
If it makes you happier I will rephrase the question:
Does this mean that en.wikipedia will be allowed to run the arbcom elections this year without board involvement?
I could do with an answer by October the first and if the answer is no I could do with details of what level of involvement.
On a related note will special:boardvote be available?
On 9/25/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The elections for arbcom will most likely be run again this year precisely as last year.
You want to use the system that people kept complaining about last year? The one that was literaly finalised in the hours leading up to the election under edit war conditions?
So those on en can't even consider useing special:boardvote?
The elections will not be the same whatever. To start with I'm gonna try and get minium candidate requirements in.
Incerdentaly how are you justifying your involvement this time?
geni wrote:
On 9/25/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The elections for arbcom will most likely be run again this year precisely as last year.
You want to use the system that people kept complaining about last year? The one that was literaly finalised in the hours leading up to the election under edit war conditions?
So those on en can't even consider useing special:boardvote?
I agree. A public ballot is a BAD IDEA.
The elections will not be the same whatever. To start with I'm gonna try and get minium candidate requirements in.
Minimum suffrage requirements would be good too.
Incerdentaly how are you justifying your involvement this time?
He doesn't have to. He's Jimbo and we accept that he is wise enough to Do The Right Thing.
On 9/26/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
I agree. A public ballot is a BAD IDEA.
I'm not sure one way or the other. I just want to have the option on the table (more I want to know if I will have it on the table or not.
Minimum suffrage requirements would be good too.
They exitisted last time (which was what the near edit war was about)
On 25/09/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The elections for arbcom will most likely be run again this year precisely as last year.
eegh. That's really horrible.
- d.
On 9/25/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The elections for arbcom will most likely be run again this year precisely as last year.
So has the general lack of support or your suggestion persuaded you that your involvement is no longer required or am I going to be trying to recruit candidates for the system that apparently everyone thought sucked last time. An answer before October the 1st would be useful.
geni wrote:
On a related note will special:boardvote be available?
The source code is available in our SVN repository along with other extensions.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
Hello, Back online. (Mainly due to 'Mania 2007; I promised KJ to give a help once. Would you sent me your expectations of potential guest/keynote speakers, KJ?)
Thank you for your kind words and apologies for my rant. Following advices, I'll take a break - after we've done post-mortem. For several reasons I would like to keep a distance from the Wikimedia project for a while. My availability will decrease but I'll be around there, not completely leave.
Well, as for Boardvote, I expect developers are aware of, however for the record I would like to stress that anyone who are granted boardvote right can access to the detailed data of the global Election. I think a local election is the board/foundation issue hence rather offtopic on this list, and don't mind if a certain project uses Boardvote extention (I know another certain Wikipedia which some people would have liked to use this for local sysop votes ... ), however, I stress that they can be given the access * only * after the results of this Election flashed. No local votetaker are allowed per se to access the private data of over 2300 editors around the world.
On 9/26/06, Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com wrote:
geni wrote:
On a related note will special:boardvote be available?
The source code is available in our SVN repository along with other extensions.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org) _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Indeed. Welcome back, Aphaia. By all accounts, take a break; you have deservedly earned a nice vacation... now let's think where to send you... would Taipei sound nice? ;) :)
As for Special:Boardvote, can Boardvote be separately installed in one particular wiki, e.g. for ArbCom elections, (or any other local election, for that matter) or would that expose the global Board election data? Can a "localboardvote" user group solve that issue?
Titoxd.
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Aphaia Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 9:16 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The Foundation is not a wiki (was Re: RfC: Keypriorities for my work)
Hello, Back online. (Mainly due to 'Mania 2007; I promised KJ to give a help once. Would you sent me your expectations of potential guest/keynote speakers, KJ?)
Thank you for your kind words and apologies for my rant. Following advices, I'll take a break - after we've done post-mortem. For several reasons I would like to keep a distance from the Wikimedia project for a while. My availability will decrease but I'll be around there, not completely leave.
Well, as for Boardvote, I expect developers are aware of, however for the record I would like to stress that anyone who are granted boardvote right can access to the detailed data of the global Election. I think a local election is the board/foundation issue hence rather offtopic on this list, and don't mind if a certain project uses Boardvote extention (I know another certain Wikipedia which some people would have liked to use this for local sysop votes ... ), however, I stress that they can be given the access * only * after the results of this Election flashed. No local votetaker are allowed per se to access the private data of over 2300 editors around the world.
On 9/26/06, Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com wrote:
geni wrote:
On a related note will special:boardvote be available?
The source code is available in our SVN repository along with other
extensions.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org) _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Oops. I realized I really need a vacation.
On 9/26/06, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
I think a local election is the board/foundation issue hence
< I think a local election is never the board/foundation issue
*never* Hopefully no one was misled.
On 9/26/06, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Well, as for Boardvote, I expect developers are aware of, however for the record I would like to stress that anyone who are granted boardvote right can access to the detailed data of the global Election. I think a local election is never the board/foundation issue rather offtopic on this list,
Jimbo aparently wants us to use a rather unpopular voteing system. The board are the people who are most likely to be able to prevent him from inforceing that.
and don't mind if a certain project uses Boardvote extention (I know another certain Wikipedia which some people would have liked to use this for local sysop votes ... ), however, I stress that they can be given the access * only * after the results of this Election flashed.
Elections will probably start on December the 4th with acess needed from the second.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
We have something like tens of thousands of Wikipedians (hundreds of thousands?), so I'm skeptical that the skills we're looking for don't exist anywhere in our community.
Larry Lessig is not a Wikipedian. Mitch Kapor is a Wikipedian, but not very active. There are other examples of people who are wild about our work who could be amazing board members, but who, because their careers do not involve editing Wikipedia, have not become members of our community. But they have skills, contacts, connections, experiences that we do not have in our community.
I suppose I don't see what that has to do with anything. Apart from a very small number of people, *none* of us have careers that involve editing Wikipedia. The entire project is build on the premise that people will help create a free encyclopedia without being paid to do so. Perhaps some people who don't want to participate in that still like the outcome---if someone else will do the work of making it come about---but that's a rather different level of commitment compared to being so "wild about our work" as to be willing to actually dedicate volunteer time to making it happen.
Remember, we are considering a much-expanded board. I think a healthy board should include a diversity of people, *including* some who are *deliberately* chosen to be from outside our community, to help us avoid groupthink and "not invented here".
I disagree with that. We have a huge body of people, and we're open to anybody who wants to join---there's no membership criterion except showing up (I'm not arguing for a "minimum 20,000 edits" or something). Excluding people who have deliberately chosen *not* to help us with our mission from being on the board seems perfectly reasonable to me.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
I disagree with that. We have a huge body of people, and we're open to anybody who wants to join---there's no membership criterion except showing up (I'm not arguing for a "minimum 20,000 edits" or something). Excluding people who have deliberately chosen *not* to help us with our mission from being on the board seems perfectly reasonable to me.
The point is, asking someone like Larry Lessig (and he is only one example, choose someone else you admire greatly if you have something against him) to become an active wikipedia editor as a condition of joining the board strikes me as silly.
He has hardly "deliberately chosen *not* to help us with our mission". There are more ways to help us with our mission than editing Wikipedia.
--Jimbo
Hoi, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect people who are to play a part in the organisation of the Wikimedia Foundation to have an obvious interest in our projects. Expecting people to have edited on Wikipedia is a bad example of yet again thinking the WMF is the same as Wikipedia. When you want to have "important" or "notable" people governing our organisation and you yourself get it wrong; indicating that there are "more ways to help us with our mission than editing Wikipedia", I fear that they will also get it wrong.
The Wikimedia Foundation is NOT Wikipedia. Boardmembers should have an obvious interest in what we do. Being notable does not qualify people. If you want someone notable, ask Kofi Anan to become a board member when his tenure as the secretary general of the United Nations has ended. This is what I call notable; notability as an IT person is not what I would think qualifies a person as a board member of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Thanks, GerardM
On 9/25/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Delirium wrote:
I disagree with that. We have a huge body of people, and we're open to anybody who wants to join---there's no membership criterion except showing up (I'm not arguing for a "minimum 20,000 edits" or something). Excluding people who have deliberately chosen *not* to help us with our mission from being on the board seems perfectly reasonable to me.
The point is, asking someone like Larry Lessig (and he is only one example, choose someone else you admire greatly if you have something against him) to become an active wikipedia editor as a condition of joining the board strikes me as silly.
He has hardly "deliberately chosen *not* to help us with our mission". There are more ways to help us with our mission than editing Wikipedia.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 9/24/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Delirium wrote:
We have something like tens of thousands of Wikipedians (hundreds of thousands?), so I'm skeptical that the skills we're looking for don't exist anywhere in our community.
Larry Lessig is not a Wikipedian. Mitch Kapor is a Wikipedian, but not very active. There are other examples of people who are wild about our work who could be amazing board members, but who, because their careers do not involve editing Wikipedia, have not become members of our community. But they have skills, contacts, connections, experiences that we do not have in our community.
That explains why a board member need not be an editor of Wikipedia. But I don't think it's too much to ask that they get involved in some public aspect of Wikimedia before becoming a board member. Whatever skills, contacts, connections, or experiences they have, why is it that they can't contribute just a bit of them *before* we guarantee them a seat on the board?
Anthony
--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Now of course the Board doesn't actually control the community, only the legal foundations and servers, but if a group of essentially outsiders became a majority and chose to take it in a direction the community disagreed with, it would cause significant chaos as the community would be forced to waste time either pushing back against them or forking---always a possibility, but a disruptive one that results in a lot of needless delay in progress.
We have something like tens of thousands of Wikipedians (hundreds of thousands?), so I'm skeptical that the skills we're looking for don't exist anywhere in our community.
The question I was answering from Angela was concerned with the issue of using community voting vs appointment to expand the board. I was NOT advocating bringing in outsiders to serve on the board (that is what the advisory board is for). Our community is huge and of course we have most if not all of the expertise needed. But to ensure we have that expertise on the board, we either need to appoint some members or have elections for roles that require candidates to have appropriate credentials and experience (not unlike electing judges or district attorneys in the U.S.).
-- mav
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On 9/24/06, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote: <snip>
Our community is huge
<snip>
allow me to comment on this notion please: our community, is it really ''huge''? i personaly prefer to be a bit more specific on this. there were in total 2347 valid votes in the recent elections, so i tend to believe that at this point, the international community (at least the part that is aware of, let alone involved in, matters concerning the board) is not (yet) so huge at all, even though the total number of our active editors will be ''more huge'' of course ;-)
best oscar
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Now of course the Board doesn't actually control the community, only the legal foundations and servers, but if a group of essentially outsiders became a majority and chose to take it in a direction the community disagreed with, it would cause significant chaos as the community would be forced to waste time either pushing back against them or forking---always a possibility, but a disruptive one that results in a lot of needless delay in progress.
We have something like tens of thousands of Wikipedians (hundreds of thousands?), so I'm skeptical that the skills we're looking for don't exist anywhere in our community.
The question I was answering from Angela was concerned with the issue of using community voting vs appointment to expand the board. I was NOT advocating bringing in outsiders to serve on the board (that is what the advisory board is for). Our community is huge and of course we have most if not all of the expertise needed. But to ensure we have that expertise on the board, we either need to appoint some members or have elections for roles that require candidates to have appropriate credentials and experience (not unlike electing judges or district attorneys in the U.S.).
Oh, in that case I agree. I'd be fine with setting aside some board seats for specific roles. It may be worth enforcing credentials for some, especially if they have to deal with the government, but even without doing that I'd imagine the community will elect people appropriately---if one seat is set aside for "someone knowledgeable in legal matters", then a lawyer would probably win an election over a non-lawyer even if we let non-lawyers run.
-Mark
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Now of course the Board doesn't actually control the community, only the legal foundations and servers, but if a group of essentially outsiders became a majority and chose to take it in a direction the community disagreed with, it would cause significant chaos as the community would be forced to waste time either pushing back against them or forking---always a possibility, but a disruptive one that results in a lot of needless delay in progress.
We have something like tens of thousands of Wikipedians (hundreds of thousands?), so I'm skeptical that the skills we're looking for don't exist anywhere in our community.
The question I was answering from Angela was concerned with the issue of using community voting vs appointment to expand the board. I was NOT advocating bringing in outsiders to serve on the board (that is what the advisory board is for). Our community is huge and of course we have most if not all of the expertise needed. But to ensure we have that expertise on the board, we either need to appoint some members or have elections for roles that require candidates to have appropriate credentials and experience (not unlike electing judges or district attorneys in the U.S.).
I don't think that these special prerequisites for being on the Board are necessary. The treasurer should not need to do the bookkeeping himself; we are big enough that we can hire someone to keep the books, and prepare preliminary financial statements. The treasurer should be able to understand the statements and discuss them with the rest of the Board, and with an expanded Board it is certainly more likely that there would be a person who can do this.
Ec
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't think that these special prerequisites for being on the Board are necessary. The treasurer should not need to do the bookkeeping himself; we are big enough that we can hire someone to keep the books, and prepare preliminary financial statements. The treasurer should be able to understand the statements and discuss them with the rest of the Board, and with an expanded Board it is certainly more likely that there would be a person who can do this.
With all due respect, a board of a non-profit needs to know how a non-profit should be run in order to perform their oversight and guidance roles. At least some board members also need to know a fair deal about how to do professional fundraising; others need legal expertise since the foundation is a legal entity; yet others need to know about finances so they could not be easily misled by incorrect or fraudulent financial statements from staff (not that would ever happen, but it is possible).
There are some fairly serious legal, financial and privacy issues that the board (on the whole) needs to have some training and experience to deal with. A group of people whose only qualification is that they are popular community members, is not necessarily going to have the needed skill-set. Of course, part of the board should consist of that, but not the whole board, or even a majority of it. And, where possible, all board members should be from the community (plenty of experts there).
-- mav
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Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't think that these special prerequisites for being on the Board are necessary. The treasurer should not need to do the bookkeeping himself; we are big enough that we can hire someone to keep the books, and prepare preliminary financial statements. The treasurer should be able to understand the statements and discuss them with the rest of the Board, and with an expanded Board it is certainly more likely that there would be a person who can do this.
With all due respect, a board of a non-profit needs to know how a non-profit should be run in order to perform their oversight and guidance roles. At least some board members also need to know a fair deal about how to do professional fundraising; others need legal expertise since the foundation is a legal entity; yet others need to know about finances so they could not be easily misled by incorrect or fraudulent financial statements from staff (not that would ever happen, but it is possible).
There are some fairly serious legal, financial and privacy issues that the board (on the whole) needs to have some training and experience to deal with. A group of people whose only qualification is that they are popular community members, is not necessarily going to have the needed skill-set. Of course, part of the board should consist of that, but not the whole board, or even a majority of it. And, where possible, all board members should be from the community (plenty of experts there).
I take the Debian model as a pretty good example of foundation governance in free-culture projects, and they don't seem to have found this necessary. The board of Software in the Public Interest, the foundation that owns the Debian assets, is composed primarily of Debian developers, including mainly former project leads or major sub-project leads. They do retain a legal advisor to sift through matters they aren't personally qualified to examine, but the counsel is not actually a board member.
It doesn't seem to have become a major problem, and that organization has made SPI very well-respected in the community---certainly nobody thinks SPI is some corporate entity trying to hijack Debian or anything. So I wonder why we must go a different route.
-Mark
Hoi, At this moment there is a controversy around Debian and Firefox. The dogmatic stance of Debian in this is enough to for me to consider Debian not to be that great a model. In some aspects it is like our situation with the WMF logos in Commons ..
Definitely this whole thing makes the Debian model a disputed model.
Thanks, Gerardm
http://ze-dinosaur.livejournal.com/12083.html
On 9/25/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't think that these special prerequisites for being on the Board are necessary. The treasurer should not need to do the bookkeeping himself; we are big enough that we can hire someone to keep the books, and prepare preliminary financial statements. The treasurer should be able to understand the statements and discuss them with the rest of the Board, and with an expanded Board it is certainly more likely that
there
would be a person who can do this.
With all due respect, a board of a non-profit needs to know how a
non-profit should be run in
order to perform their oversight and guidance roles. At least some board
members also need to know
a fair deal about how to do professional fundraising; others need legal
expertise since the
foundation is a legal entity; yet others need to know about finances so
they could not be easily
misled by incorrect or fraudulent financial statements from staff (not
that would ever happen, but
it is possible).
There are some fairly serious legal, financial and privacy issues that
the board (on the whole)
needs to have some training and experience to deal with. A group of
people whose only
qualification is that they are popular community members, is not
necessarily going to have the
needed skill-set. Of course, part of the board should consist of that,
but not the whole board, or
even a majority of it. And, where possible, all board members should be
from the community (plenty
of experts there).
I take the Debian model as a pretty good example of foundation governance in free-culture projects, and they don't seem to have found this necessary. The board of Software in the Public Interest, the foundation that owns the Debian assets, is composed primarily of Debian developers, including mainly former project leads or major sub-project leads. They do retain a legal advisor to sift through matters they aren't personally qualified to examine, but the counsel is not actually a board member.
It doesn't seem to have become a major problem, and that organization has made SPI very well-respected in the community---certainly nobody thinks SPI is some corporate entity trying to hijack Debian or anything. So I wonder why we must go a different route.
-Mark
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I take the Debian model as a pretty good example of foundation governance in free-culture projects, and they don't seem to have found this necessary. The board of Software in the Public Interest, the foundation that owns the Debian assets, is composed primarily of Debian developers, including mainly former project leads or major sub-project leads. They do retain a legal advisor to sift through matters they aren't personally qualified to examine, but the counsel is not actually a board member.
Nor do I think we need to look outside the community for the board members we need.
-- mav
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Make sure committees aren't going astray.
Only where the big picture goals of the foundation are concerned; the Foundation is NOT AT ALL in the business of community governance. Nor should it ever for legal reasons (we would lose any pretense of ISP protections if we did, of course, IANAL).
I meant the Foundation committees, like chapters, trademarks, etc. Obviously not things like the arbitration committee or any other project-related ones.
Having every board member try to monitor everything is not an answer either.
I'm not saying the Board should monitor everything. I'm saying they should never be denied access to information when they need it. There is no justification for the current situation when Board members are explicity denied the right to read private wikis.
Angela
Angela wrote:
Make sure committees aren't going astray.
Only where the big picture goals of the foundation are concerned; the Foundation is NOT AT ALL in the business of community governance. Nor should it ever for legal reasons (we would lose any pretense of ISP protections if we did, of course, IANAL).
I meant the Foundation committees, like chapters, trademarks, etc. Obviously not things like the arbitration committee or any other project-related ones.
Having every board member try to monitor everything is not an answer either.
I'm not saying the Board should monitor everything. I'm saying they should never be denied access to information when they need it. There is no justification for the current situation when Board members are explicity denied the right to read private wikis.
Angela
It is probably much more of a problem when board members do not receive information on the other board members activities, such as on the state of the audit, the important people met for strategic discussions etc...
Anthere
Angela wrote:
Having every board member try to monitor everything is not an answer either.
I'm not saying the Board should monitor everything. I'm saying they should never be denied access to information when they need it. There is no justification for the current situation when Board members are explicity denied the right to read private wikis.
I agree with this. As the people legally responsible for WMF the Directors need access to everything. It's up to each of them to use his or her own judgement on how far these private wikis will in fact be studied. Some issues will be to boring to pursue; others may require significant explanation.
Ec
Angela wrote:
I'm not saying the Board should monitor everything. I'm saying they should never be denied access to information when they need it. There is no justification for the current situation when Board members are explicity denied the right to read private wikis.
Just for the record, I disagree strongly with the idea that Board members are explicitly denied the right to read private wikis. Any wiki Angela, or any other board member, wants access to, they have my full backing to just get it done.
Anyone who disagrees is not acting on authorization from me or the board as a whole.
--Jimbo
On 9/25/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Angela wrote:
I'm not saying the Board should monitor everything. I'm saying they should never be denied access to information when they need it. There is no justification for the current situation when Board members are explicity denied the right to read private wikis.
Just for the record, I disagree strongly with the idea that Board members are explicitly denied the right to read private wikis. Any wiki Angela, or any other board member, wants access to, they have my full backing to just get it done.
i have another, more general, question, as to the ''who has access to what'':
who is responsible for keeping track of the registration of the status of all these privileges: the community? chapters? the board? the office?
in case of the community: then access lists in general should be published on the metawiki of all more or less ''private platforms'' that can be accessed on our servers: of private wikis, otrs including queues, mailing lists, mailing list passwords, masterpasswords etcetera (what did i forget?), including dates of the passwords given and changed, and access ''granted since'', ''revoked on''. afaik such pages exist but are possibly neither up to date nor complete.
in case this is not left to the community, this info could also be collected somewhere more private: if not in public, then nevertheless preferrably in a publically known secure and trusted place, such as the office, or more decentralized like in the offices of chapters perhaps?
with our growth continuing, this may very well prove to be a wise thing to not postpone now, from an administrative point of view.
best, oscar
Angela wrote:
On 9/24/06, Erik Moeller
eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
As I am waiting for the result to be certified, I would like to ask all of you to send me your thoughts -- privately or publicly -- on what you think the key priorities should be for my work as Board member.
I do not think what is currently lacking is ideas of what *a* board member should be working on.
What is currently lacking is that the community takes a MUCH more pro-active attitude, and engage not only in endless discussion, but also actually work on proposals.
A few thoughts - I realise there are lots of things missing from this list, but this should provide a starting point:
Make the press aware that there's more to Wikimedia than Wikipedia.
Interesting thought. Is there ?
Make sure committees aren't going astray. In conjunction with the chapter's committee, make sure every chapter is allowed official recognition and have a clear process for obtaining that (Wikimedia UK is still denied this recognition).
As David extremely well explained, the next step is in the UK organisation hands. Not a board member hands.
Expand the Board via election (possibly Wikicouncil style elections) and not via appointment.
The bylaws state extremely clearly that the election concept is under the responsability of the community. Not the board. It is up to the community to decide whether their representants should be elected by direct means, or indirect means.
It is not a board member responsability to decide how the community should decide who its representants are. The community itself should set up a wikicouncil.
Angela, you might have a proposal, please go ahead.
Add an advisory Board.
The advisory board was agreed upon already, so do not need to be added again. Fill up the advisory board would be best :-)
BUT, mostly, see how the advisory board should be working. And we are far away from that.
Make sure there's clear guidance and process for people wanting to use Wikimedia logos internally and externally, including derivatives on the projects.
Agreed This is already on the legal todo list.
Update and revise the bylaws with community input.
Sure, it is here.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bylaws_update
You may want to have a look at the history http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bylaws_update&action=history
Good luck Erik (the "toto" addition was mine as well)
Ensure the tech committee have the authority to buy necessary hardware.
Since Brad has arrived, this is working pretty well. The biggest priority is now to ensure that we have the financial means.
Fundraising drive, anyone ?
Ant
On 24/09/06, Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Angela wrote:
Make sure committees aren't going astray. In conjunction with the chapter's committee, make sure every chapter is allowed official recognition and have a clear process for obtaining that (Wikimedia UK is still denied this recognition).
As David extremely well explained, the next step is in the UK organisation hands. Not a board member hands.
I am now told by more than one person that this is not the case at all and to stop spreading misinformation. Which would require me to have the non-misinformation. Presumably there's some reason a press contact shouldn't have that in the first place. I'll leave the rest of the world to work that out and get back to me.
- d.
- Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Ensure the tech committee have the authority to buy necessary hardware.
Since Brad has arrived, this is working pretty well. The biggest priority is now to ensure that we have the financial means.
Fundraising drive, anyone ?
The FundCom is still being set up. We have already had two meetings and will soon have a third. So far we are still going over organizational and procedural issues. But before we have a fundraiser we should have a budget but at least need a report on the current financial situation so we can create a fundraising plan that will meet and exceed our revenue needs.
A budget will be passed at the retreat, no? How about a financial report? Who is working on this stuff now that I'm no longer CFO? It was my understanding that a staff person was hired to do this. If not, then the responsibility reverts to the board.
-- mav
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On 9/24/06, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
- Anthere Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Ensure the tech committee have the authority to buy necessary hardware.
Since Brad has arrived, this is working pretty well. The biggest priority is now to ensure that we have the financial means.
Fundraising drive, anyone ?
The FundCom is still being set up. We have already had two meetings and will soon have a third. So far we are still going over organizational and procedural issues. But before we have a fundraiser we should have a budget but at least need a report on the current financial situation so we can create a fundraising plan that will meet and exceed our revenue needs.
A budget will be passed at the retreat, no? How about a financial report? Who is working on this stuff now that I'm no longer CFO? It was my understanding that a staff person was hired to do this. If not, then the responsibility reverts to the board.
I'd like to echo this. I've heard on this list that there is half a million sitting in Wikimedia's bank account. (1) There seems to be plenty of money for basic operating costs. This is not to say that fundraising is unnecessary, but before the fundraising is done the public should have up to date financial reports and a budget which shows what the money is needed for. Brad has stated that these financial reports are forthcoming and that one the audited reports are certified and published Wikimedia will resume publication of financials on what he anticipates will be a monthly basis. (2)
The fundraising committee still has a lot of preparation it can do in the mean time, and I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for missing the last fundraising committee meeting. My son was born September 17, 2006, and during the meeting I was either still in the hospital or had just gotten out.
I'm going to think a little more before responding to Erik's RfC, but for now I will say that financial reports are in my top 2 list of things which are immediate priorities for the board. This is not to say the board needs to personally produce the financials, but they need to make sure that it gets done.
(1) An email from Anthere entitled "Isn't it getting to be time...", May 25, 2006 (2) An email from Brad entitled "Professional bookkeeping in the office", August 28, 2006
On 9/23/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
As I am waiting for the result to be certified, I would like to ask all of you to send me your thoughts -- privately or publicly -- on what you think the key priorities should be for my work as Board member.
1. Long term goals. What are the foundation and the various projects aiming for in 5 years or longer? 2. Mid term goals. What are the foundation and the various projects aiming for by Summer 2007? 3. Financial transparency and more regular reporting.
On 9/23/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
As I am waiting for the result to be certified, I would like to ask all of you to send me your thoughts -- privately or publicly -- on what you think the key priorities should be for my work as Board member.
As was correctly pointed out by Ant, you phrased the question as what *your* priorities should be as *a* Board Member. However, I'm going to answer in terms of what I think the priorities should be for the Board as a whole.
In terms of immediate priorities, the board needs to reconcile the bylaws with reality, and the board needs to resume publication of financial reports. I'm not going to get into details in terms of how the bylaws should be reconciled with reality other than to suggest that the community should be involved at all steps in the process. In terms of the financial reports, it appears that Brad is already working on this, so hopefully this will be an easy task.
In terms of short-term priorities, communication between the board and the rest of the community is still, in my opinion, lacking. I hope it won't be necessary to hire anyone to fix this situation, but if the committees and other volunteers can't reconcile this maybe it'll have to be squeezed into someone's job description.
Longer term (but still on the order of less than a year), I'd like to see the board press hard to ensure that the projects are better integrated. Single sign-on has been talked about for years now. Frankly, I don't think single sign-on is all that important, what's much more important is integration of user talk pages, watch lists, etc.
The other longer term issue is facilitating new projects. Wikinews and Wikimedia Commons have been progressing nicely in my opinion, and I think they are a good example of projects which were set up after the Foundation came into being. As the board gets more and more away from the day-to-day operations of the projects, which it seems they will be doing, I'd like to see the Foundation churning out more successful projects like this. While it's true that there has to be a certain level of community interest before there can be a new project, I believe the board has a lot that it can do in facilitating the organization of such interest.
I'm sure I'm missing a lot of things. Especially in terms of longer term issues, I've only mentioned a couple that stood out in my mind. One of the priorities for the longer term is for the board to define just what it's priorities are going to be :).
Anthony
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org