Hi Mike,
Sure. Both were open discussions, and no decisions were taken or specific
proposals developed. And neither topic is in any way limited to being a
"board discussion": both are broad-ranging topics concerning all of us. We
took these up to, as a board, have some time to step back and think about
big-picture issues.
The "disruption" discussion was largely focused around talking about
potential threats and "disruptions" to our future. These are both current
trends that we see happening and potential things that could happen that
would impact the sustainability and future of Wikipedia and the other
Wikimedia projects. For instance: the rise of mobile impacting how people
access the sites. Young people in school taking Wikipedia for granted
because they've never known anything different (and not realizing they can
help out too). We don't do anything about making video easier to use, and
so we miss out on a whole class of educational material. A competitor could
build a reading and/or editing interface that is far superior to ours,
causing a fork in readers or editors. The rise of more SOPA-like bills
could make our operating environment untenable. (These are just topics that
were raised that I remember off the top of my head, not a complete list).
The discussion was wide-ranging, inconclusive, and was meant to help us
think about risks that could impact the direction of WMF activities as well
as a kind of strategic planning warm-up.
The community council was not a long discussion, and was similarly
inconclusive; it was mostly along the lines of what Lodewijk said, that
this seems to be a need that is long-standing in our community. Other
trustees may have more details to add :)
best,
-- phoebe
On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 12:49 PM, Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net> wrote:
Hi all,
Stephen, thanks for posting this. :-)
From my perspective, there's two items of particular interest here that I
haven't seen discussed on this list or elsewhere - namely "Disrupting the
disrupters" and "Community council". The board minutes aren't really
sufficient to understand the details of what the WMF board members are
thinking about with these topics, so I'd like to ask the WMF board members
if they would be willing to share their understanding of what these topics
entail either here or on-wiki please?
(BTW, in general I'm much more in favour of seeing detailed minutes that
explain what was discussed, why it was discussed, and what individual
people thought, rather than high-level summary minutes that say what was
discussed without explaining the details. The [[Five Ws]] and the
additional 'how' are an excellent guide here!)
Thanks,
Mike
On 21 Apr 2014, at 20:14, Stephen LaPorte <slaporte(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
At the request of the WMF Board of Trustees, I am
posting the minutes of
the January 31 - February 1, 2014 meeting, which you may
find here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2014-01-31
Best,
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia
Foundation.
This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer
for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal
capacity.
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