Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
Hi Maggie,
I am flabbergasted.
It is verging on inappropriate for the WMF to immediately hire a trustee the moment they step down from the Board.
I could just about understand if the focus was solely on the executive transition. But this seems much wider.
As a former affiliate Chair I would never have dreamed of taking a job right away at the affiliate I worked for. That would have created the impression that volunteer trustees spent their time on the Board creating remunerated roles for thenselves.
And it would have broken rules that we introduced, under direct threat by the WMF of being de-recognised as an affiliate.
I am genuinely baffled why anyone thought this was a good idea, and while I have the greatest respect for all involved, I urge Maria, the board, and you to reconsider.
Regards,
Chris
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021, 21:45 Maggie Dennis, mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi Maggie,
to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.
I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.
All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.
Quite frustrated regards, Philip
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Greetings, This is an unfortunate situation. In general circumstances I would have been happy to see the addition. "to draw clear lines between staff and board members " — I think this has been a practice in different organisation. In a different organisation I have seen a director was disallowed to join as a consultant immediately after his disassociation. But do we have any documented Wikimedia policy that allows or prohibits such an appointment? It would be good to know about such guidelines.
ইতি, টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
বৃহস্পতি, ২৪ জুন, ২০২১ তারিখে ৩:০৩ AM টায় এ Philip Kopetzky < philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:
Hi Maggie,
to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.
I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.
All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.
Quite frustrated regards, Philip
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hello, all.
I’m sorry for my lack of clarity! María is *not* Foundation staff. She is an independent consultant. She did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure.
Best regards, Maggie
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:53 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings, This is an unfortunate situation. In general circumstances I would have been happy to see the addition. "to draw clear lines between staff and board members " — I think this has been a practice in different organisation. In a different organisation I have seen a director was disallowed to join as a consultant immediately after his disassociation. But do we have any documented Wikimedia policy that allows or prohibits such an appointment? It would be good to know about such guidelines.
ইতি, টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
বৃহস্পতি, ২৪ জুন, ২০২১ তারিখে ৩:০৩ AM টায় এ Philip Kopetzky < philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:
Hi Maggie,
to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.
I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.
All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.
Quite frustrated regards, Philip
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Paid "independent consultant"?
P.
Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org escreveu no dia quarta, 23/06/2021 à(s) 23:01:
Hello, all.
I’m sorry for my lack of clarity! María is *not* Foundation staff. She is an independent consultant. She did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure.
Best regards, Maggie
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:53 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings, This is an unfortunate situation. In general circumstances I would have been happy to see the addition. "to draw clear lines between staff and board members " — I think this has been a practice in different organisation. In a different organisation I have seen a director was disallowed to join as a consultant immediately after his disassociation. But do we have any documented Wikimedia policy that allows or prohibits such an appointment? It would be good to know about such guidelines.
ইতি, টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
বৃহস্পতি, ২৪ জুন, ২০২১ তারিখে ৩:০৩ AM টায় এ Philip Kopetzky < philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:
Hi Maggie,
to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.
I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.
All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.
Quite frustrated regards, Philip
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
I’m afraid that’s a distinction without a difference so far as conflict of interest is concerned.
Surely the board can’t have approved such a thing?
Michael
On 23 Jun 2021, at 23:01, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
I’m sorry for my lack of clarity! María is not Foundation staff. She is an independent consultant. She did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure.
Best regards, Maggie
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:53 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com wrote: Greetings, This is an unfortunate situation. In general circumstances I would have been happy to see the addition. "to draw clear lines between staff and board members " — I think this has been a practice in different organisation. In a different organisation I have seen a director was disallowed to join as a consultant immediately after his disassociation. But do we have any documented Wikimedia policy that allows or prohibits such an appointment? It would be good to know about such guidelines.
ইতি, টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
বৃহস্পতি, ২৪ জুন, ২০২১ তারিখে ৩:০৩ AM টায় এ Philip Kopetzky philip.kopetzky@gmail.com লিখেছেন:
Hi Maggie,
to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.
I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.
All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.
Quite frustrated regards, Philip
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote: Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Maggie,
Please be clear. How many hours a week, what remuneration, if any.
Andreas
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 11:01 PM Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
I’m sorry for my lack of clarity! María is *not* Foundation staff. She is an independent consultant. She did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure.
Best regards, Maggie
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:53 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings, This is an unfortunate situation. In general circumstances I would have been happy to see the addition. "to draw clear lines between staff and board members " — I think this has been a practice in different organisation. In a different organisation I have seen a director was disallowed to join as a consultant immediately after his disassociation. But do we have any documented Wikimedia policy that allows or prohibits such an appointment? It would be good to know about such guidelines.
ইতি, টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
বৃহস্পতি, ২৪ জুন, ২০২১ তারিখে ৩:০৩ AM টায় এ Philip Kopetzky < philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:
Hi Maggie,
to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.
I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.
All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.
Quite frustrated regards, Philip
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi Maggie,
Thanks for the clarification, but that doesn't really affect anything. Staff roles vs contractors/consultants are not that different. And the fact that you didn't discuss the post with Maria while she was on the Board doesn't mean it isn't a governance problem. First because decisions can be made and rules can be bent for people in positions of influence even without an explicit discussion. Second because, while I don't doubt your word, the appearance matters as well as the substance. Third because I really can't believe the WMF would tolerate this from an affiliate who received grants.
I'll be quite straightforward, this is a disaster for the credibility of the WMF's governance and it must be immediately reversed.
If the WMF Board has no rules to prevent this situation happening, then I am amazed - and would really be asking for a refund for whatever was paid in the 2019 board governance review.
Thanks,
Chris
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 11:01 PM Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
I’m sorry for my lack of clarity! María is *not* Foundation staff. She is an independent consultant. She did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure.
Best regards, Maggie
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:53 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings, This is an unfortunate situation. In general circumstances I would have been happy to see the addition. "to draw clear lines between staff and board members " — I think this has been a practice in different organisation. In a different organisation I have seen a director was disallowed to join as a consultant immediately after his disassociation. But do we have any documented Wikimedia policy that allows or prohibits such an appointment? It would be good to know about such guidelines.
ইতি, টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
বৃহস্পতি, ২৪ জুন, ২০২১ তারিখে ৩:০৩ AM টায় এ Philip Kopetzky < philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:
Hi Maggie,
to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.
I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.
All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.
Quite frustrated regards, Philip
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi Maggie, Maria,
while I'm sure everything is above board legally, and it follows all HR policies that the WMF has in place, it does have a weird whiff when I read this. While I think it's great for Maria to be able to put her experience to good use and while the WMF board probably benefits from these experiences being documented, it definitely does give a weird set of perceived conflicts of interest. I'm afraid that there is not really any level of assurances that can take this away.
While I'm sure that you thought this through ethically, and consulted community members how this would be perceived, it leaves an odd stain because it leaves it up to the imagination of the reader whether there might have been a trade of some kind. It may well be that the compensation is 'in line with market rates' (whatever that means) and merely to make sure that Maria has the actual time to write down these things, rather than being absorbed in other jobs. To be honest, I don't really care about the exact amount - it is clear that it is significantly more than a compensation for out-of-pocket expenses. Whether it is technically a contractor or consultant (based on the description, you could have fooled me if you would have said contractor or temporary staff member instead) I agree with the previous speakers that it at the very least acts against the spirit of all policies that limit transition between staff and board roles.
It leaves me with this odd feeling: while I'm happy that Maria will transfer some knowledge, I'm rather sad to see that this strategy process is even further complicated beyond its already existing complexity.
-- Lodewijk
Lodewijk
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 3:17 PM Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Maggie,
Thanks for the clarification, but that doesn't really affect anything. Staff roles vs contractors/consultants are not that different. And the fact that you didn't discuss the post with Maria while she was on the Board doesn't mean it isn't a governance problem. First because decisions can be made and rules can be bent for people in positions of influence even without an explicit discussion. Second because, while I don't doubt your word, the appearance matters as well as the substance. Third because I really can't believe the WMF would tolerate this from an affiliate who received grants.
I'll be quite straightforward, this is a disaster for the credibility of the WMF's governance and it must be immediately reversed.
If the WMF Board has no rules to prevent this situation happening, then I am amazed - and would really be asking for a refund for whatever was paid in the 2019 board governance review.
Thanks,
Chris
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 11:01 PM Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
I’m sorry for my lack of clarity! María is *not* Foundation staff. She is an independent consultant. She did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure.
Best regards, Maggie
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:53 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings, This is an unfortunate situation. In general circumstances I would have been happy to see the addition. "to draw clear lines between staff and board members " — I think this has been a practice in different organisation. In a different organisation I have seen a director was disallowed to join as a consultant immediately after his disassociation. But do we have any documented Wikimedia policy that allows or prohibits such an appointment? It would be good to know about such guidelines.
ইতি, টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
বৃহস্পতি, ২৪ জুন, ২০২১ তারিখে ৩:০৩ AM টায় এ Philip Kopetzky < philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:
Hi Maggie,
to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.
I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.
All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.
Quite frustrated regards, Philip
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Maggie,
You say, María "did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She *quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure* ."
It seems to me you are paying lip service here to the idea that it's inappropriate for a sitting board member to negotiate transitioning to a lucrative consultant's job, for all the reasons others in this thread have mentioned.
But three weeks ago, when María announced she would be stepping down[1], she already said:
"The Foundation has asked me to consider an advisory role to support *Movement Strategy and the onboarding of new trustees* and the new CEO/ED, to help support leadership and this strategic transition."
This is surely the same job you just announced:
"Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on *Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution* for the upcoming year".
So in fact María did discuss this while still on the board. Perhaps not with you personally, but how is it ethically "quite right" in your mind that she shouldn't have discussed it with you beforehand, but ethically fine for her to have discussed it at length with others?
I guess we are supposed to believe that María expressed no interest whatsoever in such a role, and was entirely surprised and flattered when everybody else came up to her and suggested it. Right? Did she maybe have to be talked into accepting money for the role?
I now understand Dariusz' comment in the same thread three weeks ago, when he said to María[2]:
"This is not a farewell, as I'm confident you will stay in the movement indifferent roles, be they *formal (like the one you're transitioning to)* or informal, like always".
With the benefit of hindsight, this did sound like a paid role even then. And in fact, Amanda's email just now[3] confirms that this was discussed long before María stepped down.
María, with her wealth of experience, is surely aware that affiliates have been advised to strenuously avoid such conflicts of interest over the years. This is very much a case of "Don't do as I do, do as I say".
Why should anyone stand for that? If María wants to give advice, serve the mission, she can do so as a volunteer, like everyone else.
Amanda, your various explanations as to why a paid role for María is necessary now that she has left the board, and why it's the best use of donors' money, fail to dispel the sense of plain *weirdness* attached to this.
Andreas
[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... [2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 11:01 PM Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
I’m sorry for my lack of clarity! María is *not* Foundation staff. She is an independent consultant. She did not discuss this role with me while she was on the Board. She quite rightly would not. We talked about it after her departure.
Best regards, Maggie
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 5:53 PM টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta trulytito@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings, This is an unfortunate situation. In general circumstances I would have been happy to see the addition. "to draw clear lines between staff and board members " — I think this has been a practice in different organisation. In a different organisation I have seen a director was disallowed to join as a consultant immediately after his disassociation. But do we have any documented Wikimedia policy that allows or prohibits such an appointment? It would be good to know about such guidelines.
ইতি, টিটো দত্ত/User:Titodutta
বৃহস্পতি, ২৪ জুন, ২০২১ তারিখে ৩:০৩ AM টায় এ Philip Kopetzky < philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> লিখেছেন:
Hi Maggie,
to be honest this is really difficult to understand. While the WMF, through it's various committees, pushed affiliates to clearly draw the lines between board and staff by introducing stringent governance measures (and rightly so), which also include paragraphs about introducing a cooldown period before switching between board and being employed by the same organisation, the WMF is ignoring all of that governance advice it has given over the last few years.
I feel quite silly now having been on the simpleAPG committee for three years and having advised affiliates who wanted to hire staff for the first time to draw clear lines between staff and board members, to now have to see this exact scenario I warned against play out at the WMF. Maria's departure from the BoT, even before her tenure was over and subsequent hiring really calls into question what the WMF thinks good governance should look like, notwithstanding the fact that the BoT now has one community elected seat less at a critical time in the strategy implementation process.
All in all I can only call for a governance overhaul at the WMF so that murky situations like this don't happen again.
Quite frustrated regards, Philip
On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Maggie
I am astounded.
Unless this is a non-remunerated role, taking on a board member immediately after they step down is an absolutely flagrant breach of one of the basic tenets of good corporate governance, the avoidance of conflict of interest. You and the WMF board must be very well aware of that, as you have spent years (rightly) insisting on absolute probity for the affiliates.
Please tell me that this is an unpaid position.
Michael
On 23 Jun 2021, at 21:46, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda
There's a big leap between the "advisory" role that Maria mentioned in her notice of resignation and a full-on consultancy. In that email, dated one day after the June Board of Trustees meeting chaired by Maria, she told us that the WMF had already approached her to take on the "advisory" role; this email was sent to the community *before* Maria's resignation had taken effect. Maria is not specific on who approached her to take on the advisory role before her resignation took effect, but clearly somebody did, or she would not have mentioned it in her farewell email.
I am very sad about all of this. It taints the entire governance process. It is precisely the type of issue that grants committees at all levels have been asked to "address" in their comments and recommendations; I know for a fact that governance and leadership issues like this had a very significant impact on grants recommendations for multiple grantee organizations in the past, usually with the urging of WMF staff and leadership.
It also does nothing to reassure the community about the strategy process, especially at a time when the absence of a community-selected board member would have been particularly useful. Instead, we now have a paid consultant for a position that (as best I can tell) was never advertised, posted, or even head-hunted.
And I'm sad for Maria, who has made many contributions to the movement, and who is now in a situation where whatever work she was contracted to do is going to be made so much more difficult because of this.
Just because something is legal and does not actively violate the bylaws, doesn't make it the right thing to do. The message that's being sent here isn't helpful to the movement. It puts others who are trying to carry the movement message out to new and existing communities into a really difficult position.
Risker/Anne
On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 00:51, aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for the detailed comments. However, still, this doesn't really help that much.
From your email it seems that over several months the WMF has created a new role which just happens to be ideal for its outgoing Chair to fill, and indeed could scarcely be filled by anyone else because it so closely relates to the Board's priorities.
If this is allowed to happen then it raises serious questions about whether Board members make decisions about the WMF's priorities in order to create consultancy posts for themselves. As it happens I don't believe that is what has happened here, but one could be forgiven for drawing that conclusion. There is a clear appearance of a conflict of interest. And there is a real risk of undermining the credibility of pretty much any decision the Board might take in future, if people - the community, donors or the media - start to believe that those decisions are being taken because Board members will be eased into paid positions to implement them.
No amount of reassurances that conversations happened in a particular order can avoid this. The letter and indeed the spirit of the WMF's conflict of interest policy may have been followed. But the object of the WMF's conflict of interest policy has not been achieved, quite the opposite. One can follow a policy and end up making the wrong decision, and that's what's happened here.
Thanks,
Chris
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 5:51 AM aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 12:56, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for the detailed comments. However, still, this doesn't really help that much.
From your email it seems that over several months the WMF has created a new role which just happens to be ideal for its outgoing Chair to fill, and indeed could scarcely be filled by anyone else because it so closely relates to the Board's priorities.
If this is allowed to happen then it raises serious questions about whether Board members make decisions about the WMF's priorities in order to create consultancy posts for themselves. As it happens I don't believe that is what has happened here, but one could be forgiven for drawing that conclusion. There is a clear appearance of a conflict of interest. And there is a real risk of undermining the credibility of pretty much any decision the Board might take in future, if people - the community, donors or the media - start to believe that those decisions are being taken because Board members will be eased into paid positions to implement them.
No amount of reassurances that conversations happened in a particular order can avoid this. The letter and indeed the spirit of the WMF's conflict of interest policy may have been followed. But the object of the WMF's conflict of interest policy has not been achieved, quite the opposite. One can follow a policy and end up making the wrong decision, and that's what's happened here.
I agree wholeheartedly with Chris's eloquent comments on this situation. What has happened here is very inappropriate, and deeply troubling.
Dan
It's pretty embarrassing that regional Wikimedias have better governance standards than the (extraordinarily wealthy) international Foundation.
I don't understand how the Tides/Wikimedia general counsel believes that the conflict of interest of Maria has moved directly from being Board chair to being a paid consultant for an undisclosed amount "would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons".
On Fri, Jun 25, 2021 at 12:25 PM Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 12:56, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for the detailed comments. However, still, this doesn't really help that much.
From your email it seems that over several months the WMF has created a new role which just happens to be ideal for its outgoing Chair to fill, and indeed could scarcely be filled by anyone else because it so closely relates to the Board's priorities.
If this is allowed to happen then it raises serious questions about whether Board members make decisions about the WMF's priorities in order to create consultancy posts for themselves. As it happens I don't believe that is what has happened here, but one could be forgiven for drawing that conclusion. There is a clear appearance of a conflict of interest. And there is a real risk of undermining the credibility of pretty much any decision the Board might take in future, if people - the community, donors or the media - start to believe that those decisions are being taken because Board members will be eased into paid positions to implement them.
No amount of reassurances that conversations happened in a particular order can avoid this. The letter and indeed the spirit of the WMF's conflict of interest policy may have been followed. But the object of the WMF's conflict of interest policy has not been achieved, quite the opposite. One can follow a policy and end up making the wrong decision, and that's what's happened here.
I agree wholeheartedly with Chris's eloquent comments on this situation. What has happened here is very inappropriate, and deeply troubling.
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hello, all.
Following up on Amanda because she mentioned that we were going to hold an open meeting to discuss this. I just announced the details in a separate email thread titled "Tuesday Foundation office hour." They are also available on Meta, here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2021-06-29.
This office hour will be on *June 29 at 15:00 UTC* — see https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1624978855 for your local time. If you can't come, there are ways to submit questions in advance (or simultaneously, if you don't want to join Zoom).
It's taken quite a bit of time to pull together the technical details today, and the team will be sharing information in other fora over the next few days, but we wanted to follow up on this thread ASAP.
I hope to see you there.
Best regards, Maggie
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 12:51 AM aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi Amanda and Maggie,
On the whole I am a great fan of this kind of office hour and believe it does a lot to improve communication between the WMF and community members.
However.... this is not a problem of communication. The people speaking up in this thread are largely not the people who are inherently sceptical of the WMF (indeed, two of them are former chairs of the WMF Board of Trustees!). Nor are they people who don't understand the situation or the context. They are mainly people who are quite aware of the context, often know some of the people involved personally, and are already placing a charitable interpretation on the statements that have already been made. And *still* reach the conclusion that the situation is unsustainable and the only way out of it is to reverse the decision that's been made.
Thanks,
Chris
On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 12:33 AM Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
Following up on Amanda because she mentioned that we were going to hold an open meeting to discuss this. I just announced the details in a separate email thread titled "Tuesday Foundation office hour." They are also available on Meta, here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2021-06-29 .
This office hour will be on *June 29 at 15:00 UTC* — see https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1624978855 for your local time. If you can't come, there are ways to submit questions in advance (or simultaneously, if you don't want to join Zoom).
It's taken quite a bit of time to pull together the technical details today, and the team will be sharing information in other fora over the next few days, but we wanted to follow up on this thread ASAP.
I hope to see you there.
Best regards, Maggie
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 12:51 AM aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
I'm not sure reversing such a decision, with the consequent indemnisation that most probably WMF will have to pay to Maria Sefidari, is the best solution out of this conundrum. If the evil is already done, it should be solved in a way that best serves the Movement, and throwing such indemnization costs out of the window probably is not the best.
Thanks, Paulo
Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com escreveu no dia sábado, 26/06/2021 à(s) 10:37:
Hi Amanda and Maggie,
On the whole I am a great fan of this kind of office hour and believe it does a lot to improve communication between the WMF and community members.
However.... this is not a problem of communication. The people speaking up in this thread are largely not the people who are inherently sceptical of the WMF (indeed, two of them are former chairs of the WMF Board of Trustees!). Nor are they people who don't understand the situation or the context. They are mainly people who are quite aware of the context, often know some of the people involved personally, and are already placing a charitable interpretation on the statements that have already been made. And *still* reach the conclusion that the situation is unsustainable and the only way out of it is to reverse the decision that's been made.
Thanks,
Chris
On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 12:33 AM Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
Following up on Amanda because she mentioned that we were going to hold an open meeting to discuss this. I just announced the details in a separate email thread titled "Tuesday Foundation office hour." They are also available on Meta, here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2021-06-29 .
This office hour will be on *June 29 at 15:00 UTC* — see https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1624978855 for your local time. If you can't come, there are ways to submit questions in advance (or simultaneously, if you don't want to join Zoom).
It's taken quite a bit of time to pull together the technical details today, and the team will be sharing information in other fora over the next few days, but we wanted to follow up on this thread ASAP.
I hope to see you there.
Best regards, Maggie
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 12:51 AM aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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+1 to Paulo's point, personally I would like to see us ease up on María and this seemingly temporary paid role. It's not a sinecure, not an arbitrary nepotistic position—rather, it looks like WMF would benefit.
If the people in this thread truly have the good of the organization and the movement at heart, there are much bigger structural issues with WMF and this is just a reminder that we have to fix these. Save your energy for fighting actual corruption and not just the perception of it. How about we encourage María in her advisory role to help hire an ED committed to accountability to the communities, for example?
-Adam W.
On Sat 26. Jun 2021 at 03:12, Paulo Santos Perneta paulosperneta@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure reversing such a decision, with the consequent indemnisation that most probably WMF will have to pay to Maria Sefidari, is the best solution out of this conundrum. If the evil is already done, it should be solved in a way that best serves the Movement, and throwing such indemnization costs out of the window probably is not the best.
Thanks, Paulo
Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com escreveu no dia sábado, 26/06/2021 à(s) 10:37:
Hi Amanda and Maggie,
On the whole I am a great fan of this kind of office hour and believe it does a lot to improve communication between the WMF and community members.
However.... this is not a problem of communication. The people speaking up in this thread are largely not the people who are inherently sceptical of the WMF (indeed, two of them are former chairs of the WMF Board of Trustees!). Nor are they people who don't understand the situation or the context. They are mainly people who are quite aware of the context, often know some of the people involved personally, and are already placing a charitable interpretation on the statements that have already been made. And *still* reach the conclusion that the situation is unsustainable and the only way out of it is to reverse the decision that's been made.
Thanks,
Chris
On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 12:33 AM Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
Following up on Amanda because she mentioned that we were going to hold an open meeting to discuss this. I just announced the details in a separate email thread titled "Tuesday Foundation office hour." They are also available on Meta, here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2021-06-29 .
This office hour will be on *June 29 at 15:00 UTC* — see https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1624978855 for your local time. If you can't come, there are ways to submit questions in advance (or simultaneously, if you don't want to join Zoom).
It's taken quite a bit of time to pull together the technical details today, and the team will be sharing information in other fora over the next few days, but we wanted to follow up on this thread ASAP.
I hope to see you there.
Best regards, Maggie
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 12:51 AM aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Adam,
I understand that you would like to see María provide advice, but this is a volunteer organisation – everybody, WMF paid staff excepted, works, and contributes their expertise, for free. That includes board members. And I fail to see why a board member who – according to Form 990 data at least[1] – has in most years worked an average of 2 hours per week for the WMF can not be expected to provide her advice on the same basis.
Even if the Form 990 information were for some reason a gross underestimate, I am absolutely certain that there are many Wikipedians who have spent as many and more volunteer hours on their contributions – be it writing outstanding articles, like SlimVirgin did for many years, or volunteer work on various committees – than the average board member. Who pays them?
Think about it. You can have some volunteers be more equal than others, make them the recipients of financial favours, but it is not a recipe for harmony, and for good reason. And if you head an organisation that relies on volunteer labour for almost its entire process of value generation, you should be prepared to work for it as a volunteer.
Andreas
[1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/200049703/202031349...
On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 1:34 PM Adam Wight adam.m.wight@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to Paulo's point, personally I would like to see us ease up on María and this seemingly temporary paid role. It's not a sinecure, not an arbitrary nepotistic position—rather, it looks like WMF would benefit.
If the people in this thread truly have the good of the organization and the movement at heart, there are much bigger structural issues with WMF and this is just a reminder that we have to fix these. Save your energy for fighting actual corruption and not just the perception of it. How about we encourage María in her advisory role to help hire an ED committed to accountability to the communities, for example?
-Adam W.
On Sat 26. Jun 2021 at 03:12, Paulo Santos Perneta < paulosperneta@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm not sure reversing such a decision, with the consequent indemnisation that most probably WMF will have to pay to Maria Sefidari, is the best solution out of this conundrum. If the evil is already done, it should be solved in a way that best serves the Movement, and throwing such indemnization costs out of the window probably is not the best.
Thanks, Paulo
Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com escreveu no dia sábado, 26/06/2021 à(s) 10:37:
Hi Amanda and Maggie,
On the whole I am a great fan of this kind of office hour and believe it does a lot to improve communication between the WMF and community members.
However.... this is not a problem of communication. The people speaking up in this thread are largely not the people who are inherently sceptical of the WMF (indeed, two of them are former chairs of the WMF Board of Trustees!). Nor are they people who don't understand the situation or the context. They are mainly people who are quite aware of the context, often know some of the people involved personally, and are already placing a charitable interpretation on the statements that have already been made. And *still* reach the conclusion that the situation is unsustainable and the only way out of it is to reverse the decision that's been made.
Thanks,
Chris
On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 12:33 AM Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
Following up on Amanda because she mentioned that we were going to hold an open meeting to discuss this. I just announced the details in a separate email thread titled "Tuesday Foundation office hour." They are also available on Meta, here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2021-06-29 .
This office hour will be on *June 29 at 15:00 UTC* — see https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1624978855 for your local time. If you can't come, there are ways to submit questions in advance (or simultaneously, if you don't want to join Zoom).
It's taken quite a bit of time to pull together the technical details today, and the team will be sharing information in other fora over the next few days, but we wanted to follow up on this thread ASAP.
I hope to see you there.
Best regards, Maggie
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 12:51 AM aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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There is nobody in existence whose advice is worth crossing serious bright lines in ethics of corporate governance and quite possibly legal ones. This isn't a parking ticket.
Whether the offer and acceptance were made in good faith or bad faith leads to the same conclusion: a completely unacceptable situation that must be remedied aggressively, not papered-over with corporate doublespeak. Whether poor ethics or poor judgment, neither trait ought to be welcome in a decision-making capacity. I would not want *any* person with input on the ED position who thought this was actually a good idea, even assuming the best possible faith. For this kind of skating on the edge of inurement, we should already be beyond the initial question of dismissal of the hire to the question of other, internal restructuring. This is several orders of magnitude worse than anything Dr. Heilman was removed for in 2015. If significant measures are not taken to remedy this situation, then this should be basically the only issue in the upcoming board elections, and it would be a shame to have an election in which the community is trying to deal with serious lapses of ethics or judgment rather than trying to decide the WMF's other, mission-connected priorities.
Best,
Dan
On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 8:34 AM Adam Wight adam.m.wight@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to Paulo's point, personally I would like to see us ease up on María and this seemingly temporary paid role. It's not a sinecure, not an arbitrary nepotistic position—rather, it looks like WMF would benefit.
If the people in this thread truly have the good of the organization and the movement at heart, there are much bigger structural issues with WMF and this is just a reminder that we have to fix these. Save your energy for fighting actual corruption and not just the perception of it. How about we encourage María in her advisory role to help hire an ED committed to accountability to the communities, for example?
Pleased to see an open meeting to discuss this being arranged by Maggie.[1]
Sorry to see that both WMF Legal and the WMF board fail to provide practical governance advice on the consultancy and fail to address how this is inappropriate according to the board's published policies.
It is a shame that María's full name is in this thread title, it is the WMF system that has failed, not the individual. The WMF board has collectively failed their colleague and it is inexcusable that the WMF board cannot be bothered to use their established and professionally supported governance sub-committee to review and advise on how these "benefits" to board members and retired board members should be handled to avoid the obvious risk of perceived conflicts of interest and loyalty.
There can be no doubt to anyone that the contract offer must be withdrawn or gracefully declined and the board should apologize. Whatever the outcome of the contract was intended to be, cannot outweigh the loss of confidence in the WMF board and the capabilities of WMF legal this bad decision has already caused.
1. It is peculiar that "established Wikimedians" appear to be expected to out themselves just to take part in Tuesday's Zoom call, which seems an unnecessary barrier. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2021-06-29
Thanks, Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On Sat, 26 Jun 2021 at 00:33, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
Following up on Amanda because she mentioned that we were going to hold an open meeting to discuss this. I just announced the details in a separate email thread titled "Tuesday Foundation office hour." They are also available on Meta, here.
This office hour will be on June 29 at 15:00 UTC — see https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1624978855 for your local time. If you can't come, there are ways to submit questions in advance (or simultaneously, if you don't want to join Zoom).
It's taken quite a bit of time to pull together the technical details today, and the team will be sharing information in other fora over the next few days, but we wanted to follow up on this thread ASAP.
I hope to see you there.
Best regards, Maggie
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 12:51 AM aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 8:34 AM Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> 1. It is peculiar that "established Wikimedians" appear to be expected to out themselves just to take part in Tuesday's Zoom call, which seems an unnecessary barrier. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2021-06-29
Haven't even had coffee yet, so just popping in to say - unintentional! That line was copied from a different kind of meeting. Fixing to what it usualy says when I do my office hour. Thanks for identifying that, Fae. :)
Maggie
Thanks, Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On Sat, 26 Jun 2021 at 00:33, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
Following up on Amanda because she mentioned that we were going to hold
an open meeting to discuss this. I just announced the details in a separate email thread titled "Tuesday Foundation office hour." They are also available on Meta, here.
This office hour will be on June 29 at 15:00 UTC — see
https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1624978855 for your local time. If you can't come, there are ways to submit questions in advance (or simultaneously, if you don't want to join Zoom).
It's taken quite a bit of time to pull together the technical details
today, and the team will be sharing information in other fora over the next few days, but we wanted to follow up on this thread ASAP.
I hope to see you there.
Best regards, Maggie
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 12:51 AM aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like
to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role.
The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the
Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement.
As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead.
This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions.
The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined
that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity.
Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered
stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out.
Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been
raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions.
I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
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Hello, all.
Thank you to everyone who attended the office hour at 15:00 UTC 29 June 2021.[1] We’ll be posting the notes in the next few days, including answers to a few questions we couldn’t answer in the allotted time. As promised, I wanted to follow up with next steps.
María’s contract. Following my discussion with María after the office hour, we have mutually agreed to end the contract as of 16 July 2021. María has graciously agreed to finish and document the assignments she has already started and cover for staff on holiday until this date. She will not start any new work.
Conflict of Interest Policy. We will review, update and post an updated Conflict of Interest policy by 30 September 2021 for community review and discussion before ultimate approval by the Board. The updated policy will include a consideration of “cooling off periods.”
Affiliate Grant Agreements. We had already planned to review and update our grant agreements, and we will ensure that those updates incorporate up-to-date affiliate governance guidance. We will share updated grant agreement templates for community review and comment by 31 January 2022.
Prioritization reassessment and Additional Resources. We will reassess our plans and priorities in light of these changes in direction and commitments. Given the termination period mentioned above, we will conduct this reassessment in the second half of July, when we return from a Foundation-wide break (5-9 July 2021). It is likely we will reassign internal staff and/or seek additional staff capacity. We will post any job listings publicly as part of the hiring process.
I appreciate all of you who raised important considerations in these conversations. I continue to hope that we can learn and grow from these moments together. I deeply believe that we must unite to push against the forces that are working against our mission and that we are stronger together. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share how this happened, seek your input, and change course.
In solidarity and with gratitude,
Amanda Amanda Keton She/her/hers General Counsel and Transition Team Member Wikimedia Foundation
Dear Amanda,
Thank you for this quick and holistic response. I am sure that settles the matter and helps the movement to avoid future misunderstandings like these.
The real victim here is Maria, of course. She has invested a tremendous amount of time, energy and knowledge into steering the WMF Board for many, many years. She has contributed so much to our movement as a volunteer - she does not deserve this stain on her reputation. And I sincerely hope that people within the WMF have apologized to Maria for bringing her into this impossible situation.
Cheers,
Pavel
Hi all,
This is a brief note to follow up on our commitment to update the conflict of interest policy.[1] I apologize that we did not meet our initial deadline of 30 September, but the update is in progress. We are currently finalizing the draft updated policy and figuring out the best timing for publication. We want to make sure we have adequate staff support to respond to feedback, and we want to minimize overlap with and disruption of other planned discussions. Currently, it looks like we should be able to publish the draft updated policy by the first week of November. I will let you know when we have a set date.
Best, Chuck
[1] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_policy
== Charles M. Roslof Lead Counsel Wikimedia Foundation Pronouns: they / he
On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 5:39 PM Amanda Keton aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all.
Thank you to everyone who attended the office hour at 15:00 UTC 29 June 2021.[1] We’ll be posting the notes in the next few days, including answers to a few questions we couldn’t answer in the allotted time. As promised, I wanted to follow up with next steps.
María’s contract. Following my discussion with María after the office hour, we have mutually agreed to end the contract as of 16 July 2021. María has graciously agreed to finish and document the assignments she has already started and cover for staff on holiday until this date. She will not start any new work.
Conflict of Interest Policy. We will review, update and post an updated Conflict of Interest policy by 30 September 2021 for community review and discussion before ultimate approval by the Board. The updated policy will include a consideration of “cooling off periods.”
Affiliate Grant Agreements. We had already planned to review and update our grant agreements, and we will ensure that those updates incorporate up-to-date affiliate governance guidance. We will share updated grant agreement templates for community review and comment by 31 January 2022.
Prioritization reassessment and Additional Resources. We will reassess our plans and priorities in light of these changes in direction and commitments. Given the termination period mentioned above, we will conduct this reassessment in the second half of July, when we return from a Foundation-wide break (5-9 July 2021). It is likely we will reassign internal staff and/or seek additional staff capacity. We will post any job listings publicly as part of the hiring process.
I appreciate all of you who raised important considerations in these conversations. I continue to hope that we can learn and grow from these moments together. I deeply believe that we must unite to push against the forces that are working against our mission and that we are stronger together. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share how this happened, seek your input, and change course.
In solidarity and with gratitude,
Amanda Amanda Keton She/her/hers General Counsel and Transition Team Member Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hey
So with all due respect and sympathy for the individuals involved and me being unwilling to hurt people I feel it would be worse for me just keep quiet.
The Foundation is supposed to be an example of good Governance for our entire movement. We (as a movement) have come a long way in the past 20 years (and that is important: as our organisation and budget grows, so do our responsibilities and the critical questions we get from the world)
My personal opinion with regards to this announcement it comes down to this:
It is NOT good governance to have a current board member suddenly resign and then create a situation where that person receives compensation for a position that seems to have been created specifically for that board member (or at least was not publicly posted?).
Even simpler It is a good practice to create a 12 month waiting period before board members of non-profits can become a staff member/paid contractor/consultant.
No matter whether or not this is legally or procedurally explainable…
Jan-Bart de Vreede (Writing this as a personal opinion)
On 23 Jun 2021, at 22:44, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Jan-Bart: Spot on. It is always uplifting to see one of your measured notes come over the wire.
Jan-Bart de Vreede jan-bart@wikimedia.nl writes:
The Foundation is supposed to be an example of good Governance for our entire movement. We (as a movement) have come a long way in the past 20 years (and that is important: as our organisation and budget grows, so do our responsibilities and the critical questions we get from the world)
It is NOT good governance to have a current board member suddenly resign and then create a situation where that person receives compensation for a position that seems to have been created specifically for that board member (or at least was not publicly posted?).
The impact of this increases as the movement grows, and clear communication is at a premium. How can we use this moment to model the norms we want for the future? Any *particular* moment can feel like a special exception when you are close to it, but the WMF's actions set a standard, translated across time and context, more instantly and effectively than words.
It is a good practice to create a 12 month waiting period before board members of non-profits can become a staff member/paid contractor/consultant.
A few people mentioned that their own orgs or committees have norms or policies around this (Chris, Philip, Tito); could you describe specifics that are in place now around the movement?
SJ.
It is a good practice to create a 12 month waiting period before board members of non-profits can become a staff member/paid contractor/consultant.
A few people mentioned that their own orgs or committees have norms or policies around this (Chris, Philip, Tito); could you describe specifics that are in place now around the movement?
It's interesting that you mention norms and policies... Wikimedia UK's policy on this (1) for instance states
"During the period of trusteeship, and for six months after leaving the board, no trustee may without the consent of the board accept any employed or remunerated consultancy position with, nor may offer remunerated consultancy services to:
- WMUK. Family members of trustees are ineligible for the same period; - the Wikimedia Foundation; - any organisation with which WMUK has a recent financial connection (either as funder or as a recipient of funds or gifts in kind), where the connection is significant enough to both parties to give rise to a reasonable perception of a current conflict of interest."
This is rather more in-depth than the WMF's policy, at least so far as I can see. Though not so in-depth as the previous version of the policy, which also required seeking the approval of the UK's charity regulator.
Even so, the policy could permit this kind of situation if the Board decided to approve the arrangement. However, no sensible Board would do so, because of exactly the kind of reaction that you see in this thread.
Chris
(1) https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Trustee_Conflict_of_Interest_Policy#Employment...
Hi everyone,
I feel the asynchronous discussion prevents from a meaningful discussion to happen.
Given the situation, I feel it would be appropriate for the board and the general counsel, who is the executive responsible for governance (and seems to be the person at the top of this reporting line), to answer questions from the community so that we can get specific answers and a bettwr understanding on these important issues.
Also, it is my feeling that this should not involve María, as it's about the accountability of the sitting trustees and general counsel.
Can we move forward with arranging this discussion?
Thank you in advance for helping moving that topic forward :)
Le jeu. 24 juin 2021 à 7:13 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com a écrit :
It is a good practice to create a 12 month waiting period before board members of non-profits can become a staff member/paid contractor/consultant.
A few people mentioned that their own orgs or committees have norms or policies around this (Chris, Philip, Tito); could you describe specifics that are in place now around the movement?
It's interesting that you mention norms and policies... Wikimedia UK's policy on this (1) for instance states
"During the period of trusteeship, and for six months after leaving the board, no trustee may without the consent of the board accept any employed or remunerated consultancy position with, nor may offer remunerated consultancy services to:
- WMUK. Family members of trustees are ineligible for the same period;
- the Wikimedia Foundation;
- any organisation with which WMUK has a recent financial connection
(either as funder or as a recipient of funds or gifts in kind), where the connection is significant enough to both parties to give rise to a reasonable perception of a current conflict of interest."
This is rather more in-depth than the WMF's policy, at least so far as I can see. Though not so in-depth as the previous version of the policy, which also required seeking the approval of the UK's charity regulator.
Even so, the policy could permit this kind of situation if the Board decided to approve the arrangement. However, no sensible Board would do so, because of exactly the kind of reaction that you see in this thread.
Chris
(1) https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Trustee_Conflict_of_Interest_Policy#Employment...
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Hi SJ!
The 12 month waiting/cooldown period is something that was implemented in the Good Governance Kodex of Wikimedia Austria in 2014, see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_%C3%96sterreich/Good_Governance_Ko..., with an independent committee consisting of a staff, board and community representative deciding cases that do not fulfill the 12 months waiting period.
Best, Philip
On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 16:28, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Jan-Bart: Spot on. It is always uplifting to see one of your measured notes come over the wire.
Jan-Bart de Vreede jan-bart@wikimedia.nl writes:
The Foundation is supposed to be an example of good Governance for our entire movement. We (as a movement) have come a long way in the past 20 years (and that is important: as our organisation and budget grows, so do our responsibilities and the critical questions we get from the world)
It is NOT good governance to have a current board member suddenly resign and then create a situation where that person receives compensation for a position that seems to have been created specifically for that board member (or at least was not publicly posted?).
The impact of this increases as the movement grows, and clear communication is at a premium. How can we use this moment to model the norms we want for the future? Any *particular* moment can feel like a special exception when you are close to it, but the WMF's actions set a standard, translated across time and context, more instantly and effectively than words.
It is a good practice to create a 12 month waiting period before board members of non-profits can become a staff member/paid contractor/consultant.
A few people mentioned that their own orgs or committees have norms or policies around this (Chris, Philip, Tito); could you describe specifics that are in place now around the movement?
SJ. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
¹ OK, the existence of the Good Governance Kodex, and its Good Governance Gremium https://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Good_Governance_Kodex, may be the best thing I learned all day. Thank you, WMAT!
Some precedents: ~ As Florence noted, in 2007, Erik made a similar transition. (A bit contentious; there was a long internal-l thread). ~ In 2013, Ting stepped down from the Board to apply to the ED search; and addressed concerns at the time. (Discussion on this list https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=7f4d33b442&view=lg&permmsgid=msg-f%3A1433039687338740686 )
Since then we've thought more intently about this sort of transition across the movement, and shared many excellent learning patterns https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Learning_patterns/Governance_Codex,¹ but I haven't seen a resulting global rule of thumb honoring that work. This feels like a good moment to develop such a lightweight overview. E.g., "orgs over size X should review this list of [[common patterns]], and consider implementing a version of each [links to global + regional WM-wide examples]".
SJ -- topnoting >> topposting *the community that norms together, warms together*, &c.
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 4:18 PM Philip Kopetzky philip.kopetzky@gmail.com wrote:
Hi SJ!
The 12 month waiting/cooldown period is something that was implemented in the Good Governance Kodex of Wikimedia Austria in 2014, see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_%C3%96sterreich/Good_Governance_Ko..., with an independent committee consisting of a staff, board and community representative deciding cases that do not fulfill the 12 months waiting period.
Best, Philip
On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 16:28, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Jan-Bart: Spot on. It is always uplifting to see one of your measured notes come over the wire.
Jan-Bart de Vreede jan-bart@wikimedia.nl writes:
The Foundation is supposed to be an example of good Governance for our entire movement. We (as a movement) have come a long way in the past 20 years (and that is important: as our organisation and budget grows, so do our responsibilities and the critical questions we get from the world)
It is NOT good governance to have a current board member suddenly resign and then create a situation where that person receives compensation for a position that seems to have been created specifically for that board member (or at least was not publicly posted?).
The impact of this increases as the movement grows, and clear communication is at a premium. How can we use this moment to model the norms we want for the future? Any *particular* moment can feel like a special exception when you are close to it, but the WMF's actions set a standard, translated across time and context, more instantly and effectively than words.
It is a good practice to create a 12 month waiting period before board members of non-profits can become a staff member/paid contractor/consultant.
A few people mentioned that their own orgs or committees have norms or policies around this (Chris, Philip, Tito); could you describe specifics that are in place now around the movement?
SJ. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Hi,
On 6/25/21 12:58 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
Some precedents: ~ As Florence noted, in 2007, Erik made a similar transition. (A bit contentious; there was a long internal-l thread).
And on Foundation-l https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/XNTCSFMGBJMJT3JAKGTSJARTG6I5WXID/#ID24MR7LAFT6T3BPQRNQZ4YBVKC75HL3.
~ In 2013, Ting stepped down from the Board to apply to the ED search; and addressed concerns at the time. (Discussion on this list https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=7f4d33b442&view=lg&permmsgid=msg-f%3A1433039687338740686)
Try this link https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/TMIDX5G4GHYOK2LMJVL6LVQZG74YB4L2/#TMIDX5G4GHYOK2LMJVL6LVQZG74YB4L2. Though I couldn't find any replies to Ting on Wikimedia-l, maybe the real discussion happened elsewhere.
-- Legoktm
P.S.: With Mailman3, the Wikimedia-l archives are now fully searchable through the web UI. You can even search across all lists at once.
I strongly agree that whatever standards of governance the movement develops should be adhered to consistently. I think it's entirely understandable if folks are angry if WMF holds affiliates to a different standard than itself. A symmetrical waiting period for Board members seeking paid positions for staff members seeking trusteeship seems like a reasonable governance standard to apply across the board.
The WMF Board did discuss waiting periods previously, both when I was a member [1] (I was in support of a symmetrical 6 month waiting period) and after [2]. WMF ultimately did not implement such a policy, nor did it adhere to one informally when it hired me after I left the Board in late 2007. (I've had no involvement with the org since 2015, nor have I sought it.)
I don't know if the implementation of a waiting period was discussed again by the Board in subsequent years. It's not surprising to me if the organization is not adhering to it now, since it appears to still lack such a policy in 2021.
At least in my understanding, this thread conflates a good practice (waiting periods) with violations of COI policies. As I understand it, WMF adhered to its existing COI policy through the usual measures (recusal & resignation from the Board).
The primary purpose of COI policies is to prevent self-dealing. Typical scenarios described in COI guidelines written from a US perspective like [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] focus on Board members hiring relatives, or securing contracts for their own business. They generally do not _prohibit_ even such transactions outright but describe how they must be managed. WMUK's 2012 governance review was, in part, triggered by a trustee's Wikimedia-related consulting activities while on the Board.
Waiting periods (symmetrical or in one direction) are sometimes explicitly included in COI policies, but as far as I can tell, at least for US 501(c)(3)s, they are far from common, and I did not find them in COI guidelines for organizations in our space that are publicly available (Mozilla, OSI, Software Freedom Conservancy, etc.). They may be more common in specific sectors (e.g., academia) and are certainly widely used in revolving door provisions in the context of political lobbying. IANAL (nor are most of the people commenting here), and corrections and insights and citations from lawyers or nonprofit governance experts would certainly be helpful.
I will note that, as Chris pointed out, even WMUK's current policies would permit a transaction like the one we're discussing if approved by the Board ("no trustee may _without the consent of the board_" [8]), and Wikimedia Austria's Good Governance Kodex would permit it if approved by the Gremium ("bedarf diese Anstellung der ausdrücklichen Genehmigung durch das Good-Governance-Gremium" [9]).
If such transactions are sometimes viewed as permissible, as part of harmonizing governance standards, it would be good to enumerate examples: would this transaction qualify? If the emerging consensus is to enforce waiting periods at all times, clauses which permit Boards to overrule them should perhaps be revised as part of harmonization efforts.
Because this is not nearly as bright a line as some commenters are suggesting, at least in my understanding, there is no compelling argument for reversing this decision if it is otherwise in the best interests of the organization. But there is certainly a strong practical and ethical argument for harmonizing policies and practices (and for issuing an apology if inconsistent standards have been applied).
Warmly, Erik
[1] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Minutes/2007-10-07 [2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Minutes/2007-12-11 [3] https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/conflicts-of-interest [4] https://www.boardeffect.com/blog/conflict-of-interest-policy-for-nonprofit-b... [5] https://nonprofitrisk.org/resources/articles/coi-candor-inhibition-managing-... [6] https://www.501c3.org/avoiding-conflicts-of-interest/ [7] https://boardsource.org/resources/private-benefit-private-inurement-self-dea... [8] https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Trustee_Conflict_of_Interest_Policy [9] https://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Good_Governance_Kodex
Hello all,
While this office hour will be attended by more than me, I want to be very clear what my intentions are, because I understand that some people may be concerned that I plan to show up to simply justify our decision. That’s not my goal at all. My intentions are to share perspectives, listen, and learn to inform the specific actions to take. Only after that will I make a decision about how best to proceed, in conversation and partnership with María, the other members of the Transition Team, and the Board. I am committed to making well-informed decisions that support the movement and my responsibility to it as quickly as possible.
It is obvious that despite our best intentions, the Board and Transition Team did not have all the relevant facts and circumstances in mind when this decision was made. This is a separate issue from whether or not a COI exists, which I plan for us to discuss together on Tuesday. I will take tangible steps to address these issues now that they have been brought to our attention. I want to make sure we do that with proper reflection, to avoid worsening those mistakes with poorly thought-out solutions. I would like to partner to repair this together, and grow stronger as a result.
I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow for Movement Strategy conversations and then again to discuss these and other transition matters on Tuesday.
Sincerely, Amanda
Hoi, First, I am a candidate for the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. I have taken time to see what people say, not react immediately.
For María to become a consultant, I am of two minds. She is probably best placed to support the implementation of the strategy as defined. With both the director and the chair of the board left in quick succession this will help make the roadmap practical. On the other hand, I do agree with Jan Bart and in addition it can be considered "ruling from the grave". Yes, the strategy is to be implemented but we have to be aware of our missing public.
This is the reason for my candidature; we have not developed other languages and we foster the false assumption that it is only communities that build our projects. The functionality that we have may be wonderfully localised but it is the software itself that does not truly support other languages. This is often because functionality is based on the demands of the biggest Wikipedias. It is easy to define user stories and show how a difference can be made. Everytime when this subject was broached, promises were made for the future. The numbers show that this bias is entrenched; compare the world population with the population that speaks English and it should be obvious that we have a gap that needs to be narrowed. Yes, there are easy and obvious things we can cheaply do. I want us to put a genuine effort, find a potential public, serve a new public and in this way build our communities. Thanks, GerardM
On Sat, 26 Jun 2021 at 23:23, aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello all,
While this office hour will be attended by more than me, I want to be very clear what my intentions are, because I understand that some people may be concerned that I plan to show up to simply justify our decision. That’s not my goal at all. My intentions are to share perspectives, listen, and learn to inform the specific actions to take. Only after that will I make a decision about how best to proceed, in conversation and partnership with María, the other members of the Transition Team, and the Board. I am committed to making well-informed decisions that support the movement and my responsibility to it as quickly as possible.
It is obvious that despite our best intentions, the Board and Transition Team did not have all the relevant facts and circumstances in mind when this decision was made. This is a separate issue from whether or not a COI exists, which I plan for us to discuss together on Tuesday. I will take tangible steps to address these issues now that they have been brought to our attention. I want to make sure we do that with proper reflection, to avoid worsening those mistakes with poorly thought-out solutions. I would like to partner to repair this together, and grow stronger as a result.
I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow for Movement Strategy conversations and then again to discuss these and other transition matters on Tuesday.
Sincerely, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi, everybody.
It’s Sunday, and there’s a lot of meetings today, and I wrestled with whether to say this without necessarily having the full time to think about all the ways I could say it wrong and potentially make misunderstandings worse. We’re having a meeting on Tuesday specifically to discuss issues of concern to people around this consultancy. But I’d like to openly address the suggestion that María may have influenced a Trust & Safety case here.
First: it is against policy (and it is a policy I helped write and support whole-heartedly) to talk about the specifics of Trust & Safety behavioral investigations in public in order as much as possible to protect the privacy and dignity of all involved. Public in this case includes even among staff, most of whom have no need to know when a case is even under review. We do discuss these cases with some volunteer groups who have signed non-disclosure agreements, but even that is limited. Only recently have we created a body who can review Trust & Safety case files on appropriate appeal.
Given this policy, I’m going to have to be uncomfortably vague, but I want to address and firmly deny rumors that any Board member has ever attempted to influence Trust & Safety (T&S) to take office action (including warnings) in relation to any behavioral investigation. (See the Meta page, which includes a list of the individuals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy.) I know that my saying so isn’t necessarily going to reassure folks. Some may think I’m deluded, and some may think I’m lying, but for me silence on this point is unacceptable.
Neither María nor any other trustee ever exerted any influence over any Trust & Safety case. The Board does not provide guidance on how cases should be handled unless asked (which is rare). Even executive staff do not weigh in on Trust & Safety recommended approaches until an investigation itself is complete and has been reviewed by an attorney.
I know this because I’ve been involved in one aspect or another in Trust & Safety’s behavioral investigations since 2012, when we imposed our first Foundation ban. Over the years, we have created a process by which behavioral investigations may be launched by request from anyone; Trust & Safety staff review all requests, no matter who makes it, to determine if a request is within their mandate. If it is, they open a case.
Speaking candidly, in the 9 years I’ve been involved in this, I have seen bias when issues touch on treatment of staff members or Board members or those who are close to them. But it is a bias against taking action that might make it look like the Foundation is trying to silence legitimate criticism. Those of you who handle behavioral issues on our projects are very aware that “trolls” are not our major problem. People who are hostile with no reason are easily taken care of. The problem is when people who go on the attack may have reason (even if only partial) to be unhappy. It’s hard to address the way people approach problems independently of those problems. It’s hard to say “You have a point, but you can’t handle it that way” without some people seeing you as trying to avoid the point. But there are some approaches to problems that are unacceptable. Staff, Board members, and those who are close to them deserve reasonable protection, too.
The involvement of anyone close to María in a behavioral investigation has only been speculation by some in community. That makes it questionable for me to say this, but I think it’s important to say: it is true that one of the several people who reached out with concerns about Fram had a connection to a member of the Board. This did have an impact on the case. The impact it had was that Fram was given two warnings (about a year apart) before we took office action instead of the more common one. (Fram has acknowledged receiving warnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram, otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable noting this myself.)
Whether consulting with María at this moment and in this way is appropriate or not is a discussion we will have on Tuesday. However, it disturbs me to know that some people claim María acted inappropriately in regards to a Trust & Safety case when I know better. Granted, I was on leave when the final office action was enacted, but I was not on leave in the months and years that preceded it and was not unaware of the discussions surrounding that case. I wouldn’t feel very good about myself as a person if I didn’t push back on that misimpression of her behavior in that case and explain that (I fully and honestly believe) any bias goes the other way.
As uncomfortable as it will make me, I will not respond to other questions about this case in this venue, with this audience, although (as always) I am happy to talk about Trust & Safety’s general approach with people and will do so at other opportunities.
Best regards, Maggie
Hi folks,
Leaving aside everything else for a minute, I want to reply to Maggie’s statement regarding the T&S case here. As someone with direct and specific knowledge of the issue, I feel responsibility to affirm Maggie’s version of events.
Although we provided notice to the board that we were considering a difficult T&S case regarding a well known admin on English Wikipedia, we did not consult with the board on the case. When we made the determination, following two warnings, to take action regarding the user, it was at the recommendation of staff following an investigation that followed all standard operating practices. The Board was not notified in advance of our decision to move to action; something that was in line with existing policies and IMHO, in line with an important distinction between governance and operations, but also arguably may have contributed to some of the mess that we’re all familiar with.
I have taken responsibility in various fora for this decision, and accepted the subsequent criticisms, many of them legitimate, by community members. I continue to bear that responsibility, and it is precisely because it was my responsibility that I want to reiterate that there was no COI of María in any capacity. While I would handle that case somewhat differently were we to revisit it, that is besides the point.
Whatever conversation the community wishes to have with Foundation leadership about governance and this recent decision is up to the community. However, I would encourage to avoid conflating these issues, as there is no basis for the insinuation or accusation, and unnecessarily muddies the waters for valid concerns.
Cheers, Katherine
On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 13:42 Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, everybody.
It’s Sunday, and there’s a lot of meetings today, and I wrestled with whether to say this without necessarily having the full time to think about all the ways I could say it wrong and potentially make misunderstandings worse. We’re having a meeting on Tuesday specifically to discuss issues of concern to people around this consultancy. But I’d like to openly address the suggestion that María may have influenced a Trust & Safety case here.
First: it is against policy (and it is a policy I helped write and support whole-heartedly) to talk about the specifics of Trust & Safety behavioral investigations in public in order as much as possible to protect the privacy and dignity of all involved. Public in this case includes even among staff, most of whom have no need to know when a case is even under review. We do discuss these cases with some volunteer groups who have signed non-disclosure agreements, but even that is limited. Only recently have we created a body who can review Trust & Safety case files on appropriate appeal.
Given this policy, I’m going to have to be uncomfortably vague, but I want to address and firmly deny rumors that any Board member has ever attempted to influence Trust & Safety (T&S) to take office action (including warnings) in relation to any behavioral investigation. (See the Meta page, which includes a list of the individuals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy.) I know that my saying so isn’t necessarily going to reassure folks. Some may think I’m deluded, and some may think I’m lying, but for me silence on this point is unacceptable.
Neither María nor any other trustee ever exerted any influence over any Trust & Safety case. The Board does not provide guidance on how cases should be handled unless asked (which is rare). Even executive staff do not weigh in on Trust & Safety recommended approaches until an investigation itself is complete and has been reviewed by an attorney.
I know this because I’ve been involved in one aspect or another in Trust & Safety’s behavioral investigations since 2012, when we imposed our first Foundation ban. Over the years, we have created a process by which behavioral investigations may be launched by request from anyone; Trust & Safety staff review all requests, no matter who makes it, to determine if a request is within their mandate. If it is, they open a case.
Speaking candidly, in the 9 years I’ve been involved in this, I have seen bias when issues touch on treatment of staff members or Board members or those who are close to them. But it is a bias against taking action that might make it look like the Foundation is trying to silence legitimate criticism. Those of you who handle behavioral issues on our projects are very aware that “trolls” are not our major problem. People who are hostile with no reason are easily taken care of. The problem is when people who go on the attack may have reason (even if only partial) to be unhappy. It’s hard to address the way people approach problems independently of those problems. It’s hard to say “You have a point, but you can’t handle it that way” without some people seeing you as trying to avoid the point. But there are some approaches to problems that are unacceptable. Staff, Board members, and those who are close to them deserve reasonable protection, too.
The involvement of anyone close to María in a behavioral investigation has only been speculation by some in community. That makes it questionable for me to say this, but I think it’s important to say: it is true that one of the several people who reached out with concerns about Fram had a connection to a member of the Board. This did have an impact on the case. The impact it had was that Fram was given two warnings (about a year apart) before we took office action instead of the more common one. (Fram has acknowledged receiving warnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram, otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable noting this myself.)
Whether consulting with María at this moment and in this way is appropriate or not is a discussion we will have on Tuesday. However, it disturbs me to know that some people claim María acted inappropriately in regards to a Trust & Safety case when I know better. Granted, I was on leave when the final office action was enacted, but I was not on leave in the months and years that preceded it and was not unaware of the discussions surrounding that case. I wouldn’t feel very good about myself as a person if I didn’t push back on that misimpression of her behavior in that case and explain that (I fully and honestly believe) any bias goes the other way.
As uncomfortable as it will make me, I will not respond to other questions about this case in this venue, with this audience, although (as always) I am happy to talk about Trust & Safety’s general approach with people and will do so at other opportunities.
Best regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
I am just forking this thread so the title reflects the needed discussion and we avoid derailling again to non directly / personal topics.
Le dim. 27 juin 2021 à 9:55 PM, Katherine Maher katherine.maher@gmail.com a écrit :
Hi folks,
Leaving aside everything else for a minute, I want to reply to Maggie’s statement regarding the T&S case here. As someone with direct and specific knowledge of the issue, I feel responsibility to affirm Maggie’s version of events.
Although we provided notice to the board that we were considering a difficult T&S case regarding a well known admin on English Wikipedia, we did not consult with the board on the case. When we made the determination, following two warnings, to take action regarding the user, it was at the recommendation of staff following an investigation that followed all standard operating practices. The Board was not notified in advance of our decision to move to action; something that was in line with existing policies and IMHO, in line with an important distinction between governance and operations, but also arguably may have contributed to some of the mess that we’re all familiar with.
I have taken responsibility in various fora for this decision, and accepted the subsequent criticisms, many of them legitimate, by community members. I continue to bear that responsibility, and it is precisely because it was my responsibility that I want to reiterate that there was no COI of María in any capacity. While I would handle that case somewhat differently were we to revisit it, that is besides the point.
Whatever conversation the community wishes to have with Foundation leadership about governance and this recent decision is up to the community. However, I would encourage to avoid conflating these issues, as there is no basis for the insinuation or accusation, and unnecessarily muddies the waters for valid concerns.
Cheers, Katherine
On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 13:42 Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, everybody.
It’s Sunday, and there’s a lot of meetings today, and I wrestled with whether to say this without necessarily having the full time to think about all the ways I could say it wrong and potentially make misunderstandings worse. We’re having a meeting on Tuesday specifically to discuss issues of concern to people around this consultancy. But I’d like to openly address the suggestion that María may have influenced a Trust & Safety case here.
First: it is against policy (and it is a policy I helped write and support whole-heartedly) to talk about the specifics of Trust & Safety behavioral investigations in public in order as much as possible to protect the privacy and dignity of all involved. Public in this case includes even among staff, most of whom have no need to know when a case is even under review. We do discuss these cases with some volunteer groups who have signed non-disclosure agreements, but even that is limited. Only recently have we created a body who can review Trust & Safety case files on appropriate appeal.
Given this policy, I’m going to have to be uncomfortably vague, but I want to address and firmly deny rumors that any Board member has ever attempted to influence Trust & Safety (T&S) to take office action (including warnings) in relation to any behavioral investigation. (See the Meta page, which includes a list of the individuals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy.) I know that my saying so isn’t necessarily going to reassure folks. Some may think I’m deluded, and some may think I’m lying, but for me silence on this point is unacceptable.
Neither María nor any other trustee ever exerted any influence over any Trust & Safety case. The Board does not provide guidance on how cases should be handled unless asked (which is rare). Even executive staff do not weigh in on Trust & Safety recommended approaches until an investigation itself is complete and has been reviewed by an attorney.
I know this because I’ve been involved in one aspect or another in Trust & Safety’s behavioral investigations since 2012, when we imposed our first Foundation ban. Over the years, we have created a process by which behavioral investigations may be launched by request from anyone; Trust & Safety staff review all requests, no matter who makes it, to determine if a request is within their mandate. If it is, they open a case.
Speaking candidly, in the 9 years I’ve been involved in this, I have seen bias when issues touch on treatment of staff members or Board members or those who are close to them. But it is a bias against taking action that might make it look like the Foundation is trying to silence legitimate criticism. Those of you who handle behavioral issues on our projects are very aware that “trolls” are not our major problem. People who are hostile with no reason are easily taken care of. The problem is when people who go on the attack may have reason (even if only partial) to be unhappy. It’s hard to address the way people approach problems independently of those problems. It’s hard to say “You have a point, but you can’t handle it that way” without some people seeing you as trying to avoid the point. But there are some approaches to problems that are unacceptable. Staff, Board members, and those who are close to them deserve reasonable protection, too.
The involvement of anyone close to María in a behavioral investigation has only been speculation by some in community. That makes it questionable for me to say this, but I think it’s important to say: it is true that one of the several people who reached out with concerns about Fram had a connection to a member of the Board. This did have an impact on the case. The impact it had was that Fram was given two warnings (about a year apart) before we took office action instead of the more common one. (Fram has acknowledged receiving warnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram, otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable noting this myself.)
Whether consulting with María at this moment and in this way is appropriate or not is a discussion we will have on Tuesday. However, it disturbs me to know that some people claim María acted inappropriately in regards to a Trust & Safety case when I know better. Granted, I was on leave when the final office action was enacted, but I was not on leave in the months and years that preceded it and was not unaware of the discussions surrounding that case. I wouldn’t feel very good about myself as a person if I didn’t push back on that misimpression of her behavior in that case and explain that (I fully and honestly believe) any bias goes the other way.
As uncomfortable as it will make me, I will not respond to other questions about this case in this venue, with this audience, although (as always) I am happy to talk about Trust & Safety’s general approach with people and will do so at other opportunities.
Best regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- *Katherine R. Maher*
katherine.maher@gmail.com @krmaher https://www.twitter.com/krmaher
US: +1 203 858 7316 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi,
I want to take this opportunity to thank all Foundation staff involved in the office hour that was organised today on this topic.
Thank you for being transparent and open in what was a difficult conversation for everyone involved. Like everyone I wish that there was an easy solution, but there doesn’t seem to be one.
But thank you for trusting us by showing vulnerability and explaining the reasoning that led to this and some of the thinking going forward...
Regards
Jan-Bart de Vreede
PS: Also thank you to all those that attended or wrote on this topic and expressed their (lack of) concerns. It is only through these discussions that we an grow as a movement and rebuild trust.
On 27 Jun 2021, at 22:20, Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com wrote:
I am just forking this thread so the title reflects the needed discussion and we avoid derailling again to non directly / personal topics.
Le dim. 27 juin 2021 à 9:55 PM, Katherine Maher <katherine.maher@gmail.com mailto:katherine.maher@gmail.com> a écrit : Hi folks,
Leaving aside everything else for a minute, I want to reply to Maggie’s statement regarding the T&S case here. As someone with direct and specific knowledge of the issue, I feel responsibility to affirm Maggie’s version of events.
Although we provided notice to the board that we were considering a difficult T&S case regarding a well known admin on English Wikipedia, we did not consult with the board on the case. When we made the determination, following two warnings, to take action regarding the user, it was at the recommendation of staff following an investigation that followed all standard operating practices. The Board was not notified in advance of our decision to move to action; something that was in line with existing policies and IMHO, in line with an important distinction between governance and operations, but also arguably may have contributed to some of the mess that we’re all familiar with.
I have taken responsibility in various fora for this decision, and accepted the subsequent criticisms, many of them legitimate, by community members. I continue to bear that responsibility, and it is precisely because it was my responsibility that I want to reiterate that there was no COI of María in any capacity. While I would handle that case somewhat differently were we to revisit it, that is besides the point.
Whatever conversation the community wishes to have with Foundation leadership about governance and this recent decision is up to the community. However, I would encourage to avoid conflating these issues, as there is no basis for the insinuation or accusation, and unnecessarily muddies the waters for valid concerns.
Cheers, Katherine
On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 13:42 Maggie Dennis <mdennis@wikimedia.org mailto:mdennis@wikimedia.org> wrote: Hi, everybody.
It’s Sunday, and there’s a lot of meetings today, and I wrestled with whether to say this without necessarily having the full time to think about all the ways I could say it wrong and potentially make misunderstandings worse. We’re having a meeting on Tuesday specifically to discuss issues of concern to people around this consultancy. But I’d like to openly address the suggestion that María may have influenced a Trust & Safety case here.
First: it is against policy (and it is a policy I helped write and support whole-heartedly) to talk about the specifics of Trust & Safety behavioral investigations in public in order as much as possible to protect the privacy and dignity of all involved. Public in this case includes even among staff, most of whom have no need to know when a case is even under review. We do discuss these cases with some volunteer groups who have signed non-disclosure agreements, but even that is limited. Only recently have we created a body who can review Trust & Safety case files on appropriate appeal.
Given this policy, I’m going to have to be uncomfortably vague, but I want to address and firmly deny rumors that any Board member has ever attempted to influence Trust & Safety (T&S) to take office action (including warnings) in relation to any behavioral investigation. (See the Meta page, which includes a list of the individuals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy.) I know that my saying so isn’t necessarily going to reassure folks. Some may think I’m deluded, and some may think I’m lying, but for me silence on this point is unacceptable.
Neither María nor any other trustee ever exerted any influence over any Trust & Safety case. The Board does not provide guidance on how cases should be handled unless asked (which is rare). Even executive staff do not weigh in on Trust & Safety recommended approaches until an investigation itself is complete and has been reviewed by an attorney.
I know this because I’ve been involved in one aspect or another in Trust & Safety’s behavioral investigations since 2012, when we imposed our first Foundation ban. Over the years, we have created a process by which behavioral investigations may be launched by request from anyone; Trust & Safety staff review all requests, no matter who makes it, to determine if a request is within their mandate. If it is, they open a case.
Speaking candidly, in the 9 years I’ve been involved in this, I have seen bias when issues touch on treatment of staff members or Board members or those who are close to them. But it is a bias against taking action that might make it look like the Foundation is trying to silence legitimate criticism. Those of you who handle behavioral issues on our projects are very aware that “trolls” are not our major problem. People who are hostile with no reason are easily taken care of. The problem is when people who go on the attack may have reason (even if only partial) to be unhappy. It’s hard to address the way people approach problems independently of those problems. It’s hard to say “You have a point, but you can’t handle it that way” without some people seeing you as trying to avoid the point. But there are some approaches to problems that are unacceptable. Staff, Board members, and those who are close to them deserve reasonable protection, too.
The involvement of anyone close to María in a behavioral investigation has only been speculation by some in community. That makes it questionable for me to say this, but I think it’s important to say: it is true that one of the several people who reached out with concerns about Fram had a connection to a member of the Board. This did have an impact on the case. The impact it had was that Fram was given two warnings (about a year apart) before we took office action instead of the more common one. (Fram has acknowledged receiving warnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram, otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable noting this myself.)
Whether consulting with María at this moment and in this way is appropriate or not is a discussion we will have on Tuesday. However, it disturbs me to know that some people claim María acted inappropriately in regards to a Trust & Safety case when I know better. Granted, I was on leave when the final office action was enacted, but I was not on leave in the months and years that preceded it and was not unaware of the discussions surrounding that case. I wouldn’t feel very good about myself as a person if I didn’t push back on that misimpression of her behavior in that case and explain that (I fully and honestly believe) any bias goes the other way.
As uncomfortable as it will make me, I will not respond to other questions about this case in this venue, with this audience, although (as always) I am happy to talk about Trust & Safety’s general approach with people and will do so at other opportunities.
Best regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/U7NQL5CRIX2THMSPFH6DS2BSIPTHCKSU/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org-- Katherine R. Maher
katherine.maher@gmail.com mailto:katherine.maher@gmail.com @krmaher https://www.twitter.com/krmaher
US: +1 203 858 7316 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/B45MK3D3IDFC6RTBKZ5ZKFAUKXKKBDZS/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
+1 to this - thank you to the senior staff who led the call, as well as the team that organised it at short notice, and to the Board members who attended.
I would like to echo Jan-Bart's sentiments. Mistakes will always be made where human judgement is involved, but it seems that this one is being remedied and learned from both quickly and openly.
Thanks,
Chris
On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 8:50 PM Jan-Bart de Vreede jan-bart@wikimedia.nl wrote:
Hi,
I want to take this opportunity to thank all Foundation staff involved in the office hour that was organised today on this topic.
Thank you for being transparent and open in what was a difficult conversation for everyone involved. Like everyone I wish that there was an easy solution, but there doesn’t seem to be one.
But thank you for trusting us by showing vulnerability and explaining the reasoning that led to this and some of the thinking going forward...
Regards
Jan-Bart de Vreede
PS: Also thank you to all those that attended or wrote on this topic and expressed their (lack of) concerns. It is only through these discussions that we an grow as a movement and rebuild trust.
On 27 Jun 2021, at 22:20, Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com wrote:
I am just forking this thread so the title reflects the needed discussion and we avoid derailling again to non directly / personal topics.
Le dim. 27 juin 2021 à 9:55 PM, Katherine Maher katherine.maher@gmail.com a écrit :
Hi folks,
Leaving aside everything else for a minute, I want to reply to Maggie’s statement regarding the T&S case here. As someone with direct and specific knowledge of the issue, I feel responsibility to affirm Maggie’s version of events.
Although we provided notice to the board that we were considering a difficult T&S case regarding a well known admin on English Wikipedia, we did not consult with the board on the case. When we made the determination, following two warnings, to take action regarding the user, it was at the recommendation of staff following an investigation that followed all standard operating practices. The Board was not notified in advance of our decision to move to action; something that was in line with existing policies and IMHO, in line with an important distinction between governance and operations, but also arguably may have contributed to some of the mess that we’re all familiar with.
I have taken responsibility in various fora for this decision, and accepted the subsequent criticisms, many of them legitimate, by community members. I continue to bear that responsibility, and it is precisely because it was my responsibility that I want to reiterate that there was no COI of María in any capacity. While I would handle that case somewhat differently were we to revisit it, that is besides the point.
Whatever conversation the community wishes to have with Foundation leadership about governance and this recent decision is up to the community. However, I would encourage to avoid conflating these issues, as there is no basis for the insinuation or accusation, and unnecessarily muddies the waters for valid concerns.
Cheers, Katherine
On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 13:42 Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, everybody.
It’s Sunday, and there’s a lot of meetings today, and I wrestled with whether to say this without necessarily having the full time to think about all the ways I could say it wrong and potentially make misunderstandings worse. We’re having a meeting on Tuesday specifically to discuss issues of concern to people around this consultancy. But I’d like to openly address the suggestion that María may have influenced a Trust & Safety case here.
First: it is against policy (and it is a policy I helped write and support whole-heartedly) to talk about the specifics of Trust & Safety behavioral investigations in public in order as much as possible to protect the privacy and dignity of all involved. Public in this case includes even among staff, most of whom have no need to know when a case is even under review. We do discuss these cases with some volunteer groups who have signed non-disclosure agreements, but even that is limited. Only recently have we created a body who can review Trust & Safety case files on appropriate appeal.
Given this policy, I’m going to have to be uncomfortably vague, but I want to address and firmly deny rumors that any Board member has ever attempted to influence Trust & Safety (T&S) to take office action (including warnings) in relation to any behavioral investigation. (See the Meta page, which includes a list of the individuals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy.) I know that my saying so isn’t necessarily going to reassure folks. Some may think I’m deluded, and some may think I’m lying, but for me silence on this point is unacceptable.
Neither María nor any other trustee ever exerted any influence over any Trust & Safety case. The Board does not provide guidance on how cases should be handled unless asked (which is rare). Even executive staff do not weigh in on Trust & Safety recommended approaches until an investigation itself is complete and has been reviewed by an attorney.
I know this because I’ve been involved in one aspect or another in Trust & Safety’s behavioral investigations since 2012, when we imposed our first Foundation ban. Over the years, we have created a process by which behavioral investigations may be launched by request from anyone; Trust & Safety staff review all requests, no matter who makes it, to determine if a request is within their mandate. If it is, they open a case.
Speaking candidly, in the 9 years I’ve been involved in this, I have seen bias when issues touch on treatment of staff members or Board members or those who are close to them. But it is a bias against taking action that might make it look like the Foundation is trying to silence legitimate criticism. Those of you who handle behavioral issues on our projects are very aware that “trolls” are not our major problem. People who are hostile with no reason are easily taken care of. The problem is when people who go on the attack may have reason (even if only partial) to be unhappy. It’s hard to address the way people approach problems independently of those problems. It’s hard to say “You have a point, but you can’t handle it that way” without some people seeing you as trying to avoid the point. But there are some approaches to problems that are unacceptable. Staff, Board members, and those who are close to them deserve reasonable protection, too.
The involvement of anyone close to María in a behavioral investigation has only been speculation by some in community. That makes it questionable for me to say this, but I think it’s important to say: it is true that one of the several people who reached out with concerns about Fram had a connection to a member of the Board. This did have an impact on the case. The impact it had was that Fram was given two warnings (about a year apart) before we took office action instead of the more common one. (Fram has acknowledged receiving warnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram, otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable noting this myself.)
Whether consulting with María at this moment and in this way is appropriate or not is a discussion we will have on Tuesday. However, it disturbs me to know that some people claim María acted inappropriately in regards to a Trust & Safety case when I know better. Granted, I was on leave when the final office action was enacted, but I was not on leave in the months and years that preceded it and was not unaware of the discussions surrounding that case. I wouldn’t feel very good about myself as a person if I didn’t push back on that misimpression of her behavior in that case and explain that (I fully and honestly believe) any bias goes the other way.
As uncomfortable as it will make me, I will not respond to other questions about this case in this venue, with this audience, although (as always) I am happy to talk about Trust & Safety’s general approach with people and will do so at other opportunities.
Best regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- *Katherine R. Maher*
katherine.maher@gmail.com @krmaher https://www.twitter.com/krmaher
US: +1 203 858 7316 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 at 20:58, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Mistakes will always be made where human judgement is involved, but it seems that this one is being remedied and learned from both quickly and openly.
For those of us not on the call; how so?
I'm sure a statement will be forthcoming, but in short (and these are my notes and may not accurately reflect others' words in detail)
- the WMF are deciding today whether to revoke or postpone Maria's appointment, with a strong hint they will do one or another - the WMF will also review its own conflict of interest policy in line with global good practices, with some form of community consultation on this - the WMF will commit to holding itself to the same governance standards as it expects of grantees, e.g. affiliates
Chris
On Tue, 29 Jun 2021, 21:36 Andy Mabbett, andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 at 20:58, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Mistakes will always be made where human judgement is involved, but it
seems
that this one is being remedied and learned from both quickly and openly.
For those of us not on the call; how so?
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
To those who could not make it -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQTND98b_Yg
And yes. A formal decision will follow up in the coming days (as soon as possible).
Shani.
Shani Evenstein Sigalov https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/shani-evenstein-sigalov/
Acting Vice Chair, Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/
On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 at 23:46, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sure a statement will be forthcoming, but in short (and these are my notes and may not accurately reflect others' words in detail)
- the WMF are deciding today whether to revoke or postpone Maria's
appointment, with a strong hint they will do one or another
- the WMF will also review its own conflict of interest policy in line
with global good practices, with some form of community consultation on this
- the WMF will commit to holding itself to the same governance standards
as it expects of grantees, e.g. affiliates
Chris
On Tue, 29 Jun 2021, 21:36 Andy Mabbett, andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 at 20:58, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Mistakes will always be made where human judgement is involved, but it
seems
that this one is being remedied and learned from both quickly and
openly.
For those of us not on the call; how so?
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Dear all,
I have been reading and closely following this and many other similar topics for a long time. I am sorry to say that for me, organising a concept like an "Office Hour" and doing so via Youtube for a concern of these dimensions (that affects the whole reputation of the movement), is not "remedied and learned from both quickly and openly". But only another proof of the shallowness and estrangement from the WMF towards the editors' communities. It will always be more complex to tackle common problems -and they will always become less transparent- if they are streamed in external services, attached in endlessly long PDFs, resolved in in-person small conferences, or hidden via email to whatever WMF staff email address, rather than where they really should be publicly adressed.
I am not surprised that the ethical values that used to be govern the Wikimedia Movement are seeing a drift if the usage of the wiki (i.e. Meta-wiki, notifications in the Village Pumps, etc.), our basic bastion for internal audit and debates, is also getting lost and externalised. How can I justify and convince someone that we are basically an horizontal movement of volunteers, if such a huge conflict of interest affecting all credibility is being broadcasted on Youtube almost via appointment, like if the WMF was a tech customer service? This is applicable to other endless relevant situations experienced before, that are not being tackled because Wikimedians (people who edit Wikimedia projecs in wikis) cannot access wiki spaces in which these hot topics are properly developed and announced.
Couldn't avoid sharing these thoughts publicly here, sorry if someone may consider it a side reflection.
Xavier Dengra
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ El dimarts, 29 de juny 2021 a les 9:58 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com va escriure:
+1 to this - thank you to the senior staff who led the call, as well as the team that organised it at short notice, and to the Board members who attended.
I would like to echo Jan-Bart's sentiments. Mistakes will always be made where human judgement is involved, but it seems that this one is being remedied and learned from both quickly and openly.
Thanks,
Chris
On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 8:50 PM Jan-Bart de Vreede jan-bart@wikimedia.nl wrote:
Hi,
I want to take this opportunity to thank all Foundation staff involved in the office hour that was organised today on this topic.
Thank you for being transparent and open in what was a difficult conversation for everyone involved. Like everyone I wish that there was an easy solution, but there doesn’t seem to be one.
But thank you for trusting us by showing vulnerability and explaining the reasoning that led to this and some of the thinking going forward...
Regards
Jan-Bart de Vreede
PS: Also thank you to all those that attended or wrote on this topic and expressed their (lack of) concerns. It is only through these discussions that we an grow as a movement and rebuild trust.
On 27 Jun 2021, at 22:20, Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com wrote:
I am just forking this thread so the title reflects the needed discussion and we avoid derailling again to non directly / personal topics.
Le dim. 27 juin 2021 à 9:55 PM, Katherine Maher katherine.maher@gmail.com a écrit :
Hi folks,
Leaving aside everything else for a minute, I want to reply to Maggie’s statement regarding the T&S case here. As someone with direct and specific knowledge of the issue, I feel responsibility to affirm Maggie’s version of events.
Although we provided notice to the board that we were considering a difficult T&S case regarding a well known admin on English Wikipedia, we did not consult with the board on the case. When we made the determination, following two warnings, to take action regarding the user, it was at the recommendation of staff following an investigation that followed all standard operating practices. The Board was not notified in advance of our decision to move to action; something that was in line with existing policies and IMHO, in line with an important distinction between governance and operations, but also arguably may have contributed to some of the mess that we’re all familiar with.
I have taken responsibility in various fora for this decision, and accepted the subsequent criticisms, many of them legitimate, by community members. I continue to bear that responsibility, and it is precisely because it was my responsibility that I want to reiterate that there was no COI of María in any capacity. While I would handle that case somewhat differently were we to revisit it, that is besides the point.
Whatever conversation the community wishes to have with Foundation leadership about governance and this recent decision is up to the community. However, I would encourage to avoid conflating these issues, as there is no basis for the insinuation or accusation, and unnecessarily muddies the waters for valid concerns.
Cheers, Katherine
On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 13:42 Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, everybody.
It’s Sunday, and there’s a lot of meetings today, and I wrestled with whether to say this without necessarily having the full time to think about all the ways I could say it wrong and potentially make misunderstandings worse. We’re having a meeting on Tuesday specifically to discuss issues of concern to people around this consultancy. But I’d like to openly address the suggestion that María may have influenced a Trust & Safety case here.
First: it is against policy (and it is a policy I helped write and support whole-heartedly) to talk about the specifics of Trust & Safety behavioral investigations in public in order as much as possible to protect the privacy and dignity of all involved. Public in this case includes even among staff, most of whom have no need to know when a case is even under review. We do discuss these cases with some volunteer groups who have signed non-disclosure agreements, but even that is limited. Only recently have we created a body who can review Trust & Safety case files on appropriate appeal.
Given this policy, I’m going to have to be uncomfortably vague, but I want to address and firmly deny rumors that any Board member has ever attempted to influence Trust & Safety (T&S) to take office action (including warnings) in relation to any behavioral investigation. (See the [Meta page, which includes a list of the individuals](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy).) I know that my saying so isn’t necessarily going to reassure folks. Some may think I’m deluded, and some may think I’m lying, but for me silence on this point is unacceptable.
Neither María nor any other trustee ever exerted any influence over any Trust & Safety case. The Board does not provide guidance on how cases should be handled unless asked (which is rare). Even executive staff do not weigh in on Trust & Safety recommended approaches until an investigation itself is complete and has been reviewed by an attorney.
I know this because I’ve been involved in one aspect or another in Trust & Safety’s behavioral investigations since 2012, when we imposed our first Foundation ban. Over the years, we have created a process by which behavioral investigations may be launched by request from anyone; Trust & Safety staff review all requests, no matter who makes it, to determine if a request is within their mandate. If it is, they open a case.
Speaking candidly, in the 9 years I’ve been involved in this, I have seen bias when issues touch on treatment of staff members or Board members or those who are close to them. But it is a bias against taking action that might make it look like the Foundation is trying to silence legitimate criticism. Those of you who handle behavioral issues on our projects are very aware that “trolls” are not our major problem. People who are hostile with no reason are easily taken care of. The problem is when people who go on the attack may have reason (even if only partial) to be unhappy. It’s hard to address the way people approach problems independently of those problems. It’s hard to say “You have a point, but you can’t handle it that way” without some people seeing you as trying to avoid the point. But there are some approaches to problems that are unacceptable. Staff, Board members, and those who are close to them deserve reasonable protection, too.
The involvement of anyone close to María in a behavioral investigation has only been speculation by some in community. That makes it questionable for me to say this, but I think it’s important to say: it is true that one of the several people who reached out with concerns about Fram had a connection to a member of the Board. This did have an impact on the case. The impact it had was that Fram was given two warnings (about a year apart) before we took office action instead of the more common one. (Fram [has acknowledged receiving warnings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_...), otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable noting this myself.)
Whether consulting with María at this moment and in this way is appropriate or not is a discussion we will have on Tuesday. However, it disturbs me to know that some people claim María acted inappropriately in regards to a Trust & Safety case when I know better. Granted, I was on leave when the final office action was enacted, but I was not on leave in the months and years that preceded it and was not unaware of the discussions surrounding that case. I wouldn’t feel very good about myself as a person if I didn’t push back on that misimpression of her behavior in that case and explain that (I fully and honestly believe) any bias goes the other way.
As uncomfortable as it will make me, I will not respond to other questions about this case in this venue, with this audience, although (as always) I am happy to talk about Trust & Safety’s general approach with people and will do so at other opportunities.
Best regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- Katherine R. Maher
katherine.maher@gmail.com [@krmaher](https://www.twitter.com/krmaher)
US: +1 203 858 7316 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 at 23:39, F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear all,
I have been reading and closely following this and many other similar topics for a long time. I am sorry to say that for me, organising a concept like an "Office Hour" and doing so via Youtube for a concern of these dimensions (that affects the whole reputation of the movement), is not "remedied and learned from both quickly and openly". B
Hmm for those who don't have 1:03 to burn the highlights were:
Consulted 30 people. Wasn't aware of affiliate standards. Still not decided what to do. Should be deciding what to do in the next few days.
The main defence for it not being a COI was that the budget presented to the board isn't detailed enough for the board to be aware that the position would exist.
In terms of the offered contract renumaration was based on market comprability and simular WMF contacts. Contract is 0-40 hours which could mean anything.
Plan to consult an aditional lawyer in future but given that 30 people were already consulted I'm not sure how that is meant to help.
Less related is that there is a new budget format coming up and they've got as far as CEO candidates
Just had the opportunity to take a quick listen, and I echo the appreciation. Amanda, thank you for your great tone and attitude in this. It is more than I dared to hope for at this short timeframe. I realize this is a team effort, but it would have been easy for you to dump this on someone else's plate - so extra appreciate this.
Lodewijk
On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 4:22 PM geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 at 23:39, F. Xavier Dengra i Grau via Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear all,
I have been reading and closely following this and many other similar
topics for a long time. I am sorry to say that for me, organising a concept like an "Office Hour" and doing so via Youtube for a concern of these dimensions (that affects the whole reputation of the movement), is not "remedied and learned from both quickly and openly". B
Hmm for those who don't have 1:03 to burn the highlights were:
Consulted 30 people. Wasn't aware of affiliate standards. Still not decided what to do. Should be deciding what to do in the next few days.
The main defence for it not being a COI was that the budget presented to the board isn't detailed enough for the board to be aware that the position would exist.
In terms of the offered contract renumaration was based on market comprability and simular WMF contacts. Contract is 0-40 hours which could mean anything.
Plan to consult an aditional lawyer in future but given that 30 people were already consulted I'm not sure how that is meant to help.
Less related is that there is a new budget format coming up and they've got as far as CEO candidates
-- geni _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Dear Maggie (& everyone)
Thank you for this email. I really feel that you should not have had to write this. I feel that the personal reference in an earlier mail (on this thread) to Maria and her partner was inappropriate and detracted from the discussion. But thank you for taking the opportunity to share the facts as you know them.
Again: this is hard… we as a movement are in a tough spot with regards to next steps. There are individuals involved (volunteers and staff) whom I not only respect but also sympathise with. And whatever our next steps are people have been hurt and could be damaged even more.
I have stated my opinion… and the Dutch have a saying which sums this up nicely: “beter ten halve gekeerd dan ten hele gedwaald” which roughly translated to “better to turn back halfway than having completed the journey ending up being lost"
But whatever the outcome, let us try to limit the personal attacks and minimise the damage to everyone involved.
Regards
Jan-Bart de Vreede (Again: my personal opinion)
On 27 Jun 2021, at 19:41, Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, everybody.
It’s Sunday, and there’s a lot of meetings today, and I wrestled with whether to say this without necessarily having the full time to think about all the ways I could say it wrong and potentially make misunderstandings worse. We’re having a meeting on Tuesday specifically to discuss issues of concern to people around this consultancy. But I’d like to openly address the suggestion that María may have influenced a Trust & Safety case here.
First: it is against policy (and it is a policy I helped write and support whole-heartedly) to talk about the specifics of Trust & Safety behavioral investigations in public in order as much as possible to protect the privacy and dignity of all involved. Public in this case includes even among staff, most of whom have no need to know when a case is even under review. We do discuss these cases with some volunteer groups who have signed non-disclosure agreements, but even that is limited. Only recently have we created a body who can review Trust & Safety case files on appropriate appeal.
Given this policy, I’m going to have to be uncomfortably vague, but I want to address and firmly deny rumors that any Board member has ever attempted to influence Trust & Safety (T&S) to take office action (including warnings) in relation to any behavioral investigation. (See the Meta page, which includes a list of the individuals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy.) I know that my saying so isn’t necessarily going to reassure folks. Some may think I’m deluded, and some may think I’m lying, but for me silence on this point is unacceptable.
Neither María nor any other trustee ever exerted any influence over any Trust & Safety case. The Board does not provide guidance on how cases should be handled unless asked (which is rare). Even executive staff do not weigh in on Trust & Safety recommended approaches until an investigation itself is complete and has been reviewed by an attorney.
I know this because I’ve been involved in one aspect or another in Trust & Safety’s behavioral investigations since 2012, when we imposed our first Foundation ban. Over the years, we have created a process by which behavioral investigations may be launched by request from anyone; Trust & Safety staff review all requests, no matter who makes it, to determine if a request is within their mandate. If it is, they open a case.
Speaking candidly, in the 9 years I’ve been involved in this, I have seen bias when issues touch on treatment of staff members or Board members or those who are close to them. But it is a bias against taking action that might make it look like the Foundation is trying to silence legitimate criticism. Those of you who handle behavioral issues on our projects are very aware that “trolls” are not our major problem. People who are hostile with no reason are easily taken care of. The problem is when people who go on the attack may have reason (even if only partial) to be unhappy. It’s hard to address the way people approach problems independently of those problems. It’s hard to say “You have a point, but you can’t handle it that way” without some people seeing you as trying to avoid the point. But there are some approaches to problems that are unacceptable. Staff, Board members, and those who are close to them deserve reasonable protection, too.
The involvement of anyone close to María in a behavioral investigation has only been speculation by some in community. That makes it questionable for me to say this, but I think it’s important to say: it is true that one of the several people who reached out with concerns about Fram had a connection to a member of the Board. This did have an impact on the case. The impact it had was that Fram was given two warnings (about a year apart) before we took office action instead of the more common one. (Fram has acknowledged receiving warnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram, otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable noting this myself.)
Whether consulting with María at this moment and in this way is appropriate or not is a discussion we will have on Tuesday. However, it disturbs me to know that some people claim María acted inappropriately in regards to a Trust & Safety case when I know better. Granted, I was on leave when the final office action was enacted, but I was not on leave in the months and years that preceded it and was not unaware of the discussions surrounding that case. I wouldn’t feel very good about myself as a person if I didn’t push back on that misimpression of her behavior in that case and explain that (I fully and honestly believe) any bias goes the other way.
As uncomfortable as it will make me, I will not respond to other questions about this case in this venue, with this audience, although (as always) I am happy to talk about Trust & Safety’s general approach with people and will do so at other opportunities.
Best regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi Amanda,
It is obvious that despite our best intentions, the Board and Transition Team did not have all the relevant facts and circumstances in mind when this decision was made.
I'm trying hard to understand how the Board and Transition team failed to realize the WMF expects standards of transparency, ethics, and governance from affiliates that the WMF itself is not able to meet, and worse, than hiring María as a consultant with this level of transparency wouldn't be considered unethical. I certainly understand the need, and value tremendously María's advice, but t's not the first time incidents like this happen, and the reply we always receive is "going forward, we'll do this better" or something along those lines.
Many volunteers around the globe have worked very hard for years to meet the standards the WMF expects from us. This feels like a slap on the face. Or, another.
This is a separate issue from whether or not a COI exists, which I plan for us to discuss together on Tuesday. I will take tangible steps to address these issues now that they have been brought to our attention. I want to make sure we do that with proper reflection, to avoid worsening those mistakes with poorly thought-out solutions. I would like to partner to repair this together, and grow stronger as a result.
I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow for Movement Strategy conversations and then again to discuss these and other transition matters on Tuesday.
Sincerely, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi all,
An important item of information that transpired during the Office Hour just now is that the envisaged contract is for consultancy services of up to 40 hours per week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQTND98b_Yg
(The event also featured, it must be said, a very photogenic cat.)
Andreas
On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 5:16 PM Maor Malul maor.malul.x@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Amanda,
It is obvious that despite our best intentions, the Board and Transition Team did not have all the relevant facts and circumstances in mind when this decision was made.
I'm trying hard to understand how the Board and Transition team failed to realize the WMF expects standards of transparency, ethics, and governance from affiliates that the WMF itself is not able to meet, and worse, than hiring María as a consultant with this level of transparency wouldn't be considered unethical. I certainly understand the need, and value tremendously María's advice, but t's not the first time incidents like this happen, and the reply we always receive is "going forward, we'll do this better" or something along those lines.
Many volunteers around the globe have worked very hard for years to meet the standards the WMF expects from us. This feels like a slap on the face. Or, another.
This is a separate issue from whether or not a COI exists, which I plan for us to discuss together on Tuesday. I will take tangible steps to address these issues now that they have been brought to our attention. I want to make sure we do that with proper reflection, to avoid worsening those mistakes with poorly thought-out solutions. I would like to partner to repair this together, and grow stronger as a result.
I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow for Movement Strategy conversations and then again to discuss these and other transition matters on Tuesday.
Sincerely, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- *"Jülüjain wane mmakat ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain."* Maor Malul Socio, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 | www.wikimedia.org.ve Member, Wikimedia Israel | www.wikimedia.org.il Member, Wiki Cemeteries User Group Phone: +972-52-4869915 Twitter: @maor_x _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Thank you for sharing the link to the recording, unfortunately I could not follow it live. I am reassured by the open approach and speed taken to transparently address the issue and hope that the commitments promised will be followed through. With the high turnover at the WMF and many leadership positions still to be filled, this was an encouraging signal.
I did not want to come in earlier, as I believe the perception and what is expected of a major and mature organisation was well described by others.
I only want to draw attention to one point in the interest of our growing or future affiliates in that the examples brought forward from affiliate policies enforced by the WMF all concerned mature organisations with an established separation of staff and board roles (can't be sure, but I don't believe this was a policy systematically promoted to affiliates). Some smaller affiliates might find themselves in the position where a given board member might be putting in the 30 hours a week as a volunteer, and when it comes to hiring the first employee, the choice is between giving this "unicorn" board member a chance (provided the position is advertised, s/he is properly recused and qualified) or getting an outsider on-boarded probably by the same board member who was already working 30 hours a week for free and who might be asked to continue to do so. (There's already a lot on this topic on Meta which is a bit off topic in this thread, and just my short hypothetical example here raises a myriad assumptions or side discussions on the right approach to take -- the point is that our movement is more varied than has been represented in the few posts on the mailing list here and any future harmonisation in this area should keep this diversity and Dariusz' perspective at the end of the recording https://youtu.be/rQTND98b_Yg?t=3585 in mind in our efforts to setting up a movement wide minimum standard on the experience of this oversight at our supposedly most mature organisation.)
Best regards, Bence
On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 at 19:06, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
An important item of information that transpired during the Office Hour just now is that the envisaged contract is for consultancy services of up to 40 hours per week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQTND98b_Yg
(The event also featured, it must be said, a very photogenic cat.)
Andreas
On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 5:16 PM Maor Malul maor.malul.x@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Amanda,
It is obvious that despite our best intentions, the Board and Transition Team did not have all the relevant facts and circumstances in mind when this decision was made.
I'm trying hard to understand how the Board and Transition team failed to realize the WMF expects standards of transparency, ethics, and governance from affiliates that the WMF itself is not able to meet, and worse, than hiring María as a consultant with this level of transparency wouldn't be considered unethical. I certainly understand the need, and value tremendously María's advice, but t's not the first time incidents like this happen, and the reply we always receive is "going forward, we'll do this better" or something along those lines.
Many volunteers around the globe have worked very hard for years to meet the standards the WMF expects from us. This feels like a slap on the face. Or, another.
This is a separate issue from whether or not a COI exists, which I plan for us to discuss together on Tuesday. I will take tangible steps to address these issues now that they have been brought to our attention. I want to make sure we do that with proper reflection, to avoid worsening those mistakes with poorly thought-out solutions. I would like to partner to repair this together, and grow stronger as a result.
I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow for Movement Strategy conversations and then again to discuss these and other transition matters on Tuesday.
Sincerely, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- *"Jülüjain wane mmakat ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain."* Maor Malul Socio, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 | www.wikimedia.org.ve
Member, Wikimedia Israel | www.wikimedia.org.il Member, Wiki Cemeteries User Group Phone: +972-52-4869915 Twitter: @maor_x _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 4:47 PM Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
At least in my understanding, this thread conflates a good practice
(waiting periods) with violations of COI policies. As I understand it, WMF adhered to its existing COI policy through the usual measures (recusal & resignation from the Board).
The primary purpose of COI policies is to prevent self-dealing. Typical scenarios described in COI guidelines written from a US perspective like [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] focus on Board members hiring relatives, or securing contracts for their own business. They generally do not _prohibit_ even such transactions outright but describe how they must be managed. WMUK's 2012 governance review was, in part, triggered by a trustee's Wikimedia-related consulting activities while on the Board.
Speaking of conflating, there's a lot of conflating of "ethical" with "not specifically against WMF policy." This kind of insider favoritism among boards *is* fraught with serious ethical concerns, no matter what WMF's specific policies state. The fact when questioned, we're given descriptions of the hiring timeline that are, in different places, both inconsistent and opaque. If WMF policies don't specifically disallow this kind of under-the-table dealing, then that's not evidence that the hiring is OK, that's evidence that WMF policies are sorely lacking. The lookback period for private inurement and private benefit to disqualified persons is five years for a reason.
I'd feel this way no matter how high quality the hire is. It's fundamentally wrong and comes after some really cynical manipulations of election and board rules by this board over the last year. That this hire is also a controversial figure in English Wikipedia for multiple reasons is irrelevant to the insider favoritism shown here.
I maintain that the ethical solution is a simple one: a cancellation of the hiring and, in my opinion, resignation letters from the person or people with the final say over this decision, no matter in how good faith the decision was. If not unethical because of good faith, it's a flabbergasting example of poor judgment.
Best,
Dan
I will note that, as Chris pointed out, even WMUK's current policies would permit a transaction like the one we're discussing if approved by the Board ("no trustee may _without the consent of the board_" [8]), and Wikimedia Austria's Good Governance Kodex would permit it if approved by the Gremium ("bedarf diese Anstellung der ausdrücklichen Genehmigung durch das Good-Governance-Gremium" [9]).
If such transactions are sometimes viewed as permissible, as part of harmonizing governance standards, it would be good to enumerate examples: would this transaction qualify? If the emerging consensus is to enforce waiting periods at all times, clauses which permit Boards to overrule them should perhaps be revised as part of harmonization efforts.
Hi Erik,
Indeed, most of these policies are written with a certain level of flexibility. And I do know of cases where board members of affiliates have gone on to have staff roles within the movement, and asked for and received permission to do so. So why might this be a problem and other instances not a problem?
It's probably worth setting out the objective of this kind of policy, which is to give confidence that organisations are making decisions based on what will best fulfill their mission, and to avoid the perception that decisions are made for the personal gain of trustees.
Whatever a conflict of interest policy says, if it doesn't end up achieving that goal, then either the policy or the associated decision-making is at fault.
My concern over this specific instance is prompted by several things: - A paid role has been created for a specific person, based on their contributions as a trustee - the trustee concerned was involved in shaping the role: certainly at a 'meta' level in terms of championing the work area the role is about, and evidently also in conversations about how the role would work out while still being Chair of the organisation - there was no open recruitment process, so it's unclear if there really was no other conceivable candidate. I understand this is not unheard of for the WMF, but it's poor practice, particularly when there are other warning flags. (I am told that when jobs are openly advertised, the recruitment process can be long and arduous.) - there was no gap at all between the trustee departing as Chair, and starting the role. Indeed the role was evidently offered, in some form, while the Trustee in question was still Chair of the Board. - it's unclear in what manner or at what level of detail the Board's approval of this was given - all of this refers to a Chair of the Board of Trustees. Chairs are typically responsible for the management of the Chief Executive on behalf of the Board, which puts them in a particularly high-profile position. While I don't fully understand how this has worked out during the WMF executive transition, it seems reasonable to ask whether the trustee in question was simultaneously holding performance reviews or pay negotiations with members of the WMF interim executive team while also having conversations with them about what her own future paid role at the WMF might be.
Thanks,
Chris
Adding to Chris' points, I would also like to illustrate the point where in the future, founding a user group or chapter (the latter is pretty unlikely nowadays), applying for a grant proposal and being hired by your colleagues as the first staff member of the user group you founded would be something totally legal, just lacking any ethical or moral compass.
Now of course whatever volunteer committee at the WMF rejects this proposal would be confronted with the fact that the WMF saw no problem where this affected the WMF. Good luck explaining that and keeping any sense of ethical coherence. I really hope the Movement Charter can provide some guidance on this issue, which the WMF would have to adhere to as well.
Cheers, Philip
On Sun, 27 Jun 2021 at 13:03, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I will note that, as Chris pointed out, even WMUK's current policies
would permit a transaction like the one we're discussing if approved by the Board ("no trustee may _without the consent of the board_" [8]), and Wikimedia Austria's Good Governance Kodex would permit it if approved by the Gremium ("bedarf diese Anstellung der ausdrücklichen Genehmigung durch das Good-Governance-Gremium" [9]).
If such transactions are sometimes viewed as permissible, as part of harmonizing governance standards, it would be good to enumerate examples: would this transaction qualify? If the emerging consensus is to enforce waiting periods at all times, clauses which permit Boards to overrule them should perhaps be revised as part of harmonization efforts.
Hi Erik,
Indeed, most of these policies are written with a certain level of flexibility. And I do know of cases where board members of affiliates have gone on to have staff roles within the movement, and asked for and received permission to do so. So why might this be a problem and other instances not a problem?
It's probably worth setting out the objective of this kind of policy, which is to give confidence that organisations are making decisions based on what will best fulfill their mission, and to avoid the perception that decisions are made for the personal gain of trustees.
Whatever a conflict of interest policy says, if it doesn't end up achieving that goal, then either the policy or the associated decision-making is at fault.
My concern over this specific instance is prompted by several things:
- A paid role has been created for a specific person, based on their
contributions as a trustee
- the trustee concerned was involved in shaping the role: certainly at a
'meta' level in terms of championing the work area the role is about, and evidently also in conversations about how the role would work out while still being Chair of the organisation
- there was no open recruitment process, so it's unclear if there really
was no other conceivable candidate. I understand this is not unheard of for the WMF, but it's poor practice, particularly when there are other warning flags. (I am told that when jobs are openly advertised, the recruitment process can be long and arduous.)
- there was no gap at all between the trustee departing as Chair, and
starting the role. Indeed the role was evidently offered, in some form, while the Trustee in question was still Chair of the Board.
- it's unclear in what manner or at what level of detail the Board's
approval of this was given
- all of this refers to a Chair of the Board of Trustees. Chairs are
typically responsible for the management of the Chief Executive on behalf of the Board, which puts them in a particularly high-profile position. While I don't fully understand how this has worked out during the WMF executive transition, it seems reasonable to ask whether the trustee in question was simultaneously holding performance reviews or pay negotiations with members of the WMF interim executive team while also having conversations with them about what her own future paid role at the WMF might be.
Thanks,
Chris
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"founding a user group or chapter (the latter is pretty unlikely nowadays), applying for a grant proposal and being hired by your colleagues as the first staff member of the user group you founded would be something totally legal, just lacking any ethical or moral compass." - I believe you are forgetting here that both affiliate Board and affiliate staff often draw from exactly the same pool (expert wikimedians), which is often a very limited pool. I believe that as long as the hiring process is transparent, there's nothing there "lacking any ethical or moral compass". Skilled human resources are very limited, and very few people do not have to work, are retired or otherwise can entirely dedicate themselves both to the Wikimedia projects where they get the expertise, and to unpaid affiliate management.
Either those ppl can serve both as affiliate board and then staff (or vice versa), or you'll hardly find anyone with the proper skills to be in any board. This is especially true when being in an affiliate board exposes one to all sorts of harassment, including in their private lives, due to the affiliate association to WMF and Wikipédia. Harassment + having to work for free (including in training and monitoring paid staff) -> Nobody wants this.
To be clear, I don't think this is the case with WMF Board, at all, where a much larger pool is always available.
Best, Paulo
Philip Kopetzky philip.kopetzky@gmail.com escreveu no dia domingo, 27/06/2021 à(s) 13:58:
Adding to Chris' points, I would also like to illustrate the point where in the future, founding a user group or chapter (the latter is pretty unlikely nowadays), applying for a grant proposal and being hired by your colleagues as the first staff member of the user group you founded would be something totally legal, just lacking any ethical or moral compass.
Now of course whatever volunteer committee at the WMF rejects this proposal would be confronted with the fact that the WMF saw no problem where this affected the WMF. Good luck explaining that and keeping any sense of ethical coherence. I really hope the Movement Charter can provide some guidance on this issue, which the WMF would have to adhere to as well.
Cheers, Philip
On Sun, 27 Jun 2021 at 13:03, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I will note that, as Chris pointed out, even WMUK's current policies
would permit a transaction like the one we're discussing if approved by the Board ("no trustee may _without the consent of the board_" [8]), and Wikimedia Austria's Good Governance Kodex would permit it if approved by the Gremium ("bedarf diese Anstellung der ausdrücklichen Genehmigung durch das Good-Governance-Gremium" [9]).
If such transactions are sometimes viewed as permissible, as part of harmonizing governance standards, it would be good to enumerate examples: would this transaction qualify? If the emerging consensus is to enforce waiting periods at all times, clauses which permit Boards to overrule them should perhaps be revised as part of harmonization efforts.
Hi Erik,
Indeed, most of these policies are written with a certain level of flexibility. And I do know of cases where board members of affiliates have gone on to have staff roles within the movement, and asked for and received permission to do so. So why might this be a problem and other instances not a problem?
It's probably worth setting out the objective of this kind of policy, which is to give confidence that organisations are making decisions based on what will best fulfill their mission, and to avoid the perception that decisions are made for the personal gain of trustees.
Whatever a conflict of interest policy says, if it doesn't end up achieving that goal, then either the policy or the associated decision-making is at fault.
My concern over this specific instance is prompted by several things:
- A paid role has been created for a specific person, based on their
contributions as a trustee
- the trustee concerned was involved in shaping the role: certainly at a
'meta' level in terms of championing the work area the role is about, and evidently also in conversations about how the role would work out while still being Chair of the organisation
- there was no open recruitment process, so it's unclear if there really
was no other conceivable candidate. I understand this is not unheard of for the WMF, but it's poor practice, particularly when there are other warning flags. (I am told that when jobs are openly advertised, the recruitment process can be long and arduous.)
- there was no gap at all between the trustee departing as Chair, and
starting the role. Indeed the role was evidently offered, in some form, while the Trustee in question was still Chair of the Board.
- it's unclear in what manner or at what level of detail the Board's
approval of this was given
- all of this refers to a Chair of the Board of Trustees. Chairs are
typically responsible for the management of the Chief Executive on behalf of the Board, which puts them in a particularly high-profile position. While I don't fully understand how this has worked out during the WMF executive transition, it seems reasonable to ask whether the trustee in question was simultaneously holding performance reviews or pay negotiations with members of the WMF interim executive team while also having conversations with them about what her own future paid role at the WMF might be.
Thanks,
Chris
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On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 5:03 AM Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
My concern over this specific instance is prompted by several things:
Thanks for laying out these concerns very clearly, Chris! I'll reiterate that, above all, my own biggest concern here is that governance standards of the movement should evolve together, and it's highly problematic if WMF is seen as holding itself to a different standard than the organizations it works with. None of my comments are intended to diminish that concern.
In terms of the specifics, within the current WMF policy which does not yet include a waiting period, I feel that Amanda's statement [1] addressed some of these points reasonably. Taking the statement at face value, the key points to me are:
- the process began with staff identifying specific needs, not with a desire to create a role for a trustee; - everyone involved sought to navigate any real or perceived COI in line with WMF's policies, and Maria has resigned as trustee before taking on a paid role; - the Board discussed the matter both through relevant committees and in Executive Session without Maria present.
The contract itself is framed as temporary and presumably bound to a well-defined Statement of Work. The distinction matters because an organization's hiring processes for temporary contract roles may be legitimately less involved than for permanent staff hires.
This is _not_ an argument against waiting periods for such contracts. I can see the merit of pushing an organization to look beyond its walls for any remunerated role, at least by default, and I can see why governance experts have recommended as much in discussions with affiliates. If I was part of an affiliate, I would be pissed if I had been told to implement such a policy (possibly in a manner tied to future funding), only to learn that WMF has never done the same.
But I also don't think what happened here should be overstated. Organizations that want to hand out sinecures don't announce it on public mailing lists in the form of high-visibility, high-stakes contracts. I believe that the contract should proceed on its merits, and the failure by WMF to adhere to standards that affiliates have implemented is a separate matter.
YMMV. I won't be able to participate much more in this thread, so please take that for what it's worth from an oldtimer with a single digit edit count this year. :)
Regardless of whether the contract still proceeds, I would encourage WMF to share the actual Statement of Work and other non-sensitive contract parameters (duration; hours if specified). These are the kinds of parameters that would typically be included in a public RfP.
Warmly, Erik
[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
I believe Jan-Bart post reflect my perspective on the topic. I second.
Florence
PS: I will point out though... for historical perspective, that a rather similar situation happened in the early years of the WMF, when Eric Moeller chose to resign from his position as board member to be hired by Sue Gartner as Deputy Director. The board was not involved in the discussion, but was put in front of the "fait-accompli". But those were early days.
Le 24/06/2021 à 16:43, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit :
Hey
So with all due respect and sympathy for the individuals involved and me being unwilling to hurt people I feel it would be worse for me just keep quiet.
The Foundation is supposed to be an example of good Governance for our entire movement. We (as a movement) have come a long way in the past 20 years (and that is important: as our organisation and budget grows, so do our responsibilities and the critical questions we get from the world)
My personal opinion with regards to this announcement it comes down to this:
It is NOT good governance to have a current board member suddenly resign and then create a situation where that person receives compensation for a position that seems to have been created specifically for that board member (or at least was not publicly posted?).
Even simpler It is a good practice to create a 12 month waiting period before board members of non-profits can become a staff member/paid contractor/consultant.
No matter whether or not this is legally or procedurally explainable…
Jan-Bart de Vreede (Writing this as a personal opinion)
On 23 Jun 2021, at 22:44, Maggie Dennis <mdennis@wikimedia.org mailto:mdennis@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards, Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/PFOBFWCBFACRGY3OMXAQG54ALPXGT3K3/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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It's nice to read that chapters have been encouraged to tighten up their governance, avoiding conflicts of interest and so on. But before we pile onto this one issue, can we please step back and look at the Wikimedia Foundation itself?
Technically, none of its Board members are elected. This is already a red flag, only made more disturbing by the symbolic elections which are respected according to the good will of the sitting Board, and which can and have been reversed on a whim. Real elections would be governed by well-understood non-profit law and would be rooted in direct ownership of the corporation by its members (you, the contributors). Instead, we have the Board continuously improvising the rules for "selecting" its new members, and maintaining a majority of appointed members.
Next, if we're truly concerned with conflicts of interest *outside* of the narrow yet vague definition in the Bylaws... Should we talk about a for-profit wiki farm running at a scale comparable to Wikimedia, funded by venture capital and plastered with advertisements? Interestingly, this wiki farm was started at about the same time that Bomis was forced to commit to not showing ads on Wikipedia, and many of the same Board members sat on both the newly formed Wikimedia and the for-profit Board—and still do.
I can imagine many potential conflicts of interest in this two-wiki arrangement, most concerning is the possibility that the scope of Wikimedia could be restricted in order to drive users towards the for-profit. Then there's the possibility of building software using donation money, testing it on volunteers, and then the for-profit getting it for free. Yet no conflict of interest statement has been filed in 16 years of sharing Board members between these sites. Without a formal declaration of conflict of interest, our Bylaws give us no tools to prevent corruption.
We don't have to assume any malice here, the point of conflict of interest is that humans are not rational, they are subject to cognitive dissonance, and we cannot trust even the best of us to make the right decisions when our allegiances are split.
Before we try to deny an outgoing Board chair the opportunity to *help* our movement, perhaps we can look at the many structural issues with WMF governance? I understand that most of us are starting their missive with a positive note of appreciation for María, but this still feels like a personal attack on a person who just spent c. 8 years of their time volunteering for us in a high-stress capacity. We want María advising the Board. This is not a highly-paid executive position. We also want to close the revolving door and institute other normal, democratic controls.
Adam Wight [[mw:User:Adamw]]
On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 10:45 PM Maggie Dennis mdennis@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, all. :)
I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!
I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience & Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department. I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising. Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm, in which she has a broad range of experience.
María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. :) With more than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into our own work on Movement Strategy.
Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her at related meetings and still will. :) I anticipate María will be joining one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021 this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Updates/June_15,_2021! I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Warm regards,
Maggie
-- Maggie Dennis She/her/hers Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hello again, Thank you to everyone that has provided valuable feedback. Moving forward, we will articulate and follow the best practices that emerge from these important discussions and our corresponding review of the attendant policies, procedures, and practices. Developing a more clear and consistent policy approach to future decisions is important for us. Maggie had been planning to do a community office hour in July in order to avoid conflicting with annual plan discussions and Movement Strategy meetings. We’ve decided instead to host that time next week. I’ll be there as General Counsel and also as a member of the transition team and am working to see if the other members of the Transition Team or Board of Trustees will be able to join me so we can discuss any further questions or concerns you may have. I’m prioritizing doing this sooner over making sure everyone can attend. It’s less notice than we would like to give, but otherwise it would be well into July before we’d be able. The time and details will be coming very soon, hopefully tomorrow. Best regards, Amanda
"Moving forward" would involve directly addressing and fixing this shocking example of board malgovernance, not corporate-doublespeaking about the future in a way that avoids any and all culpability and transparency for this gross ethical lapse. This doesn't need to be "explained" to us; it needs to be remedied. Preferably with pen, paper, and farewells for the pushers of this latest débâcle.
Best,
Dan
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 10:27 PM aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello again, Thank you to everyone that has provided valuable feedback. Moving forward, we will articulate and follow the best practices that emerge from these important discussions and our corresponding review of the attendant policies, procedures, and practices. Developing a more clear and consistent policy approach to future decisions is important for us. Maggie had been planning to do a community office hour in July in order to avoid conflicting with annual plan discussions and Movement Strategy meetings. We’ve decided instead to host that time next week. I’ll be there as General Counsel and also as a member of the transition team and am working to see if the other members of the Transition Team or Board of Trustees will be able to join me so we can discuss any further questions or concerns you may have. I’m prioritizing doing this sooner over making sure everyone can attend. It’s less notice than we would like to give, but otherwise it would be well into July before we’d be able. The time and details will be coming very soon, hopefully tomorrow. Best regards, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
"Thank you to everyone that has provided valuable feedback. Moving forward, we will articulate and follow the best practices that emerge from these important discussions and our corresponding review of the attendant policies, procedures, and practices. Developing a more clear and consistent policy approach to future decisions is important for us."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FOs9_l33gY&t=13s
Andreas
On Fri, 25 Jun 2021 at 11:26, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
That is an unhelpful and incredibly inappropriate response.
Dan
Dear Amanda,
it is good to hear that you will take this advise and the discussion under consideration for future decisions of this kind. But what about the one we are talking about right now? Will the WMF review it´s decision to hire the former chair of its own board, or not?
Besides all the good arguments from Jan-Bart, Chris and many others here: How is hiring the former Board chair not covered under the Conflict of Interest policy of the WMF? Cleary, the former Chair of the Board falls under the "Covered Person" definition - and the policy clearly coveres not only *actual* CoI, but also *peceived* ones?
Cheers,
Pavel
Hi Amanda, [Apologies if accidental double-post]
"Moving forward, we will articulate and follow the best practices that emerge from these important discussions and our corresponding review of the attendant policies, procedures, and practices."
That would be a reasonable statement if this were a more marginally concerning action - something that promoted some concerns, and pointed to potential greater future issues if not resolved.
However this indicates the WMF is willing to accept that an error was made, but not actually vitiate that error. It also concerns me that the WMF were *not* aware of Community & affiliate norms in this field - what level of oversight of affiliate governance is occurring that there being significant affiliates with provisions like this not be known?
Like functionally the entire participant list of the email thread to date, I don't think there was any absence of good faith from key actors. But nor do I think it's "merely" (and it's a very big "merely" indeed) an optics complaint. There are genuine accidental COI issues that arise, as well as the instance raising genuine concerns at the decision-making and awareness of community values that anyone operating in such a significant consulting role in the most critical field of discussions the movement has had in a decade.
Yours,
Nosebagbear
"It also concerns me that the WMF were *not* aware of Community & affiliate norms in this field - what level of oversight of affiliate governance is occurring that there being significant affiliates with provisions like this not be known?"
This is a question I would really like to be answered. For way more than a decade, the WMF Board maintains a committee precisely to deal with those issues - first ChapCom, now AffCom. How come this disconnection is happening between the Board, and their own committee?
P.
nosebagbear@gmail.com escreveu no dia sexta, 25/06/2021 à(s) 18:19:
Hi Amanda, [Apologies if accidental double-post]
"Moving forward, we will articulate and follow the best practices that emerge from these important discussions and our corresponding review of the attendant policies, procedures, and practices."
That would be a reasonable statement if this were a more marginally concerning action - something that promoted some concerns, and pointed to potential greater future issues if not resolved.
However this indicates the WMF is willing to accept that an error was made, but not actually vitiate that error. It also concerns me that the WMF were *not* aware of Community & affiliate norms in this field - what level of oversight of affiliate governance is occurring that there being significant affiliates with provisions like this not be known?
Like functionally the entire participant list of the email thread to date, I don't think there was any absence of good faith from key actors. But nor do I think it's "merely" (and it's a very big "merely" indeed) an optics complaint. There are genuine accidental COI issues that arise, as well as the instance raising genuine concerns at the decision-making and awareness of community values that anyone operating in such a significant consulting role in the most critical field of discussions the movement has had in a decade.
Yours,
Nosebagbear _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 18:45, Adam Wight adam.m.wight@gmail.com wrote:
I can imagine many potential conflicts of interest in this two-wiki arrangement, most concerning is the possibility that the scope of Wikimedia could be restricted in order to drive users towards the for-profit.
This is not a hypothetical. Contrary to the "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." tenet, massive amounts of information has been actively moved off Wikipedia to for-profit wikis -- I'm talking of course about such things as Star Wars, Star Trek, Pokémon etc.
Michel
Maggie,
How widely was this role advertised? Where?
In 2019 Maria's partner invoked a process which, judging from the ensuing furore, was known only to Foundation insiders. That episode ripped the English Wikipedia community apart for months after, and still casts a long shadow.
In 2021 Maria is appointed to a vacancy which apparently was known only to Foundation insiders. Whatever she brings to the role it doesn't appear to be a sensitivity to the need for, or the appearance of, openness.
Cabayi
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