I've decided to take a different approach to the one I have been taking on the subject of our new expert board member. I'm going to make a constructive suggestion (perhaps I should have started with that approach...).
It is self-evident that the WMF board needs to make decisions about a wide range of subjects and that often those decisions will require some knowledge and experience of the subject in question. It is also self-evident that the community is not likely to select board members that, between them, have knowledge and experience of all the subjects required. This is why there are expert board members, to fill in the gaps.
So, the need for experts is beyond question. I am, however, going to question the need for them to be on the board. The rest of the board do not, to my knowledge, abstain from voting when the subject for discussion is not one they are an expert on. This means the expert has just one vote of many, so that vote being based on expertise is largely irrelevant. The expertise is useful because the expert uses that expertise to advise the rest of the board, which means many votes become based on expertise.
There are two main things a board member can do to shape the way the foundation works. They can speak up in discussions and they can cast their vote. I believe I have shown that the speaking up part is far more significant for an expert than the voting part. For that reason, I suggest that the vote be taken away from expert board members, they don't need it. Experts should sit on the advisory board where they can advise members of the community who sit on the board of trustees.
This would allow more community involvement, but would also allow more expert involvement. At the moment we can only have four experts since we don't want experts to outnumber the community and having too many people on the board makes it inefficient. If the experts were moved to the advisory board, there would be no real limit to how many of them we could have. Those that have expertise relevant to whatever is on the agenda for a given board meeting could be invited to that board meeting, offer their advice, and then the community members could vote. This is the key thing - the members of the advisory board need to actually be used. At the moment I believe the advisory board is largely dormant. If the board of trustees consulted the relevant members of the advisory board more, there would be no need for experts to be on the board of trustees.
To summarise, my suggestion is to abolish all the expert seats on the WMF board of trustees and replace them with community selected seats (either direct elections, chapter selections or some other method entirely). The advisory board would then be filled with experts on all the subjects required, which the board of trustees would then routinely consult. This would, of course, need to happen over time - the damage to continuity that would happen if that were done in one go right now wouldn't worth it.
On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Experts should sit on the advisory board where they can advise members of the community who sit on the board of trustees.
I think this is one of the main and very good points the board should consider in the long run. (Very fitting for now with our Strategic Planning project!)
The Advisory Board hasn't really been used that well, at least not to my knowledge. There should probably be more effort placed on taking advantage of that expertise there, but also keeping in mind the community-related expertise (ie. this mailing list). It's all a balancing act that we'll need to get the hang of.
2009/8/27 Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org:
The Advisory Board hasn't really been used that well, at least not to my knowledge. There should probably be more effort placed on taking advantage of that expertise there, but also keeping in mind the community-related expertise (ie. this mailing list). It's all a balancing act that we'll need to get the hang of.
I think part of the problem is that there were some odd ideas about how the Advisory Board would work. For example, it has a chair. I can't work out why. Why would the advisory board ever meet as a group? Being an expert is only of use if you are an expert in the subject being discussed. Individual members of the advisory board should be approached as and when their expertise is needed. That doesn't seem to be how the group was originally envisaged, which explains why it was never used - as designed, it was pretty useless.
On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 10:24 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I think part of the problem is that there were some odd ideas about how the Advisory Board would work. For example, it has a chair. I can't work out why. Why would the advisory board ever meet as a group? Being an expert is only of use if you are an expert in the subject being discussed. Individual members of the advisory board should be
[snip]
Presumably a chair can track membership and expertise and handle routing messages to the relevant parties, participate with recruiting, and otherwise act as an impedance match between the board proper and the advisory board. I'm not sure if that was what was envisioned, or if chair is the best name for it, but I think that it's a reasonable alternative to the sort of flat structure that you're describing.
2009/8/27 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 10:24 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I think part of the problem is that there were some odd ideas about how the Advisory Board would work. For example, it has a chair. I can't work out why. Why would the advisory board ever meet as a group? Being an expert is only of use if you are an expert in the subject being discussed. Individual members of the advisory board should be
[snip]
Presumably a chair can track membership and expertise and handle routing messages to the relevant parties, participate with recruiting, and otherwise act as an impedance match between the board proper and the advisory board. I'm not sure if that was what was envisioned, or if chair is the best name for it, but I think that it's a reasonable alternative to the sort of flat structure that you're describing.
I guess that is somewhere being a chair and a secretary. The job title isn't important, as long as the role is clearly defined.
For some background reference, * original resolution creating the Advisory Board: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board * current Advisory Board with biographies: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 10:24 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I think part of the problem is that there were some odd ideas about how the Advisory Board would work. For example, it has a chair. I can't work out why. Why would the advisory board ever meet as a group?
Well, it actually has had two meetings: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
To summarise, my suggestion is to abolish all the expert seats on the WMF board of trustees
Going along with this, based on another thread about the Nomination Committee, if this was done NOMCOM could instead be tasked with looking to expand the Advisory Board with necessary characteristics. (Basically the same goals/tasks, but directed in a different place.)
Hi Thomas,
one year ago when I run for the board election I came with the same proposal as you. Meanwhile I have changed my oppinion. The problem is that this would not work out.
I totally agree with you that voting is the minor part of the board decision making process. Actually in many cases it is only for the protocol and formality. The really big part is before voting, while discussion. Here you are totally right.
There are a lot of differences between a board member and an advisory board member. The most important difference is the dedication. As a board member you MUST attend board meeting, you MUST take part in discussion. As an advisory board member you are not obliged to do that. Naturally, if we have an issue and we feel lack of expertise, or simply because we want to get more input from more sources, we go out and ask members of the advisory board. This is for example why some of our committees has advisory board member in it. This is also why the advisory board would play a crucial role in the strategic planning. But it is totally different between that expertise is already inside of the board or if the expertise must at first be asked from outside of the board. The best examples you can see are Stu West and Jan-Bard de Vreede. Stu with his technical and financial expertise is simply there, in every meeting, in the board mailing list, we don't have to go out and ask someone from the outside, especially because these expertise are really direly needed in every meeting and most of our topics. The same is it with the organizational expertise that Jan-Bard brings into the board both in how an ordinary procedure should look like as well as how discipline must be excercised in the board. This is the reason why they are asked to be on the board again and again and why they hold so important offices in the board. Indeed, my experience with both of them is why I have changed my opinion. I don't know Matt that long yet, just met him in one board meeting. But I do feel that in this one meeting he gave very interesting and important insights. For example how measurement of success should look like. There are also other reasons why we need expert seats. One is that sometimes you are in a discussion and stumbles over something where you didn't see the need of an expert before but where you feel really thankful to have one in the board. Naturally you can say, hey, we need here an expertise, let us at first ask someone in the advisory board and then make a decision. This actually happend in the past year more than once. But this is a slow process, you would go out and e-mail that person, she or he would answer, there would maybe more questions that you would ask again, or the board must first discuss internally and then ask again. This is totally different as if you have already that expertise in the meeting and can directly go forward. I also need not to mention that it is totally different to talk with someone from face to face or via e-mail and we cannot fly all advisory board members whose expertise are needed in to the board meeting.
As I said before I had the same idea as you last year. But some times a change of perspective or new experiences show that the idea doesn't work.
Greetings Ting
On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 6:35 AM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
There are a lot of differences between a board member and an advisory board member. The most important difference is the dedication. As a board member you MUST attend board meeting, you MUST take part in discussion. As an advisory board member you are not obliged to do that.
Why isn't it? What's the difference? Is it just an ego thing? People are willing to commit to something if they can put "board member" on their resume, but not if they can put "advisory board member" on it?
I also need not to mention that it is totally different to talk with someone from face to face or via e-mail and we cannot fly all advisory board members whose expertise are needed in to the board meeting.
You could always get rid of the expertise seats and not replace them with community seats, then fly out the board plus those advisory board members who would have been regular board members if there had been advisory seats available for them.
But if people aren't willing to make that commitment unless they have a vote, I guess that makes sense.
Ideally most experts should be paid, not part of a board. But maybe the WMF can't afford that.
Well, I have never understood why the board is so involved. Generally in business, the Board hires and fires the CEO and that's it.
I also consider expert seats a waste of space as that is why we have department heads.
Then again, I suspect I am and always will be in the minority.
________________________________ From: Anthony wikimail@inbox.org To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 6:41:53 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Expert board members - a suggestion
On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 6:35 AM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
There are a lot of differences between a board member and an advisory board member. The most important difference is the dedication. As a board member you MUST attend board meeting, you MUST take part in discussion. As an advisory board member you are not obliged to do that.
Why isn't it? What's the difference? Is it just an ego thing? People are willing to commit to something if they can put "board member" on their resume, but not if they can put "advisory board member" on it?
I also need not to mention that it is totally different to talk with someone from face to face or via e-mail and we cannot fly all advisory board members whose expertise are needed in to the board meeting.
You could always get rid of the expertise seats and not replace them with community seats, then fly out the board plus those advisory board members who would have been regular board members if there had been advisory seats available for them.
But if people aren't willing to make that commitment unless they have a vote, I guess that makes sense.
Ideally most experts should be paid, not part of a board. But maybe the WMF can't afford that. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2009/8/27 Geoffrey Plourde geo.plrd@yahoo.com:
Well, I have never understood why the board is so involved. Generally in business, the Board hires and fires the CEO and that's it.
I don't think that is the case. The board has a duty of oversight and is generally responsible for high level decisions about the direction of the company. The CEO is responsible for the day-to-day implementation of the board's decisions.
There can only be one leader in a business.
________________________________ From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 1:26:22 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Expert board members - a suggestion
2009/8/27 Geoffrey Plourde geo.plrd@yahoo.com:
Well, I have never understood why the board is so involved. Generally in business, the Board hires and fires the CEO and that's it.
I don't think that is the case. The board has a duty of oversight and is generally responsible for high level decisions about the direction of the company. The CEO is responsible for the day-to-day implementation of the board's decisions.
_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2009/8/28 Geoffrey Plourde geo.plrd@yahoo.com:
There can only be one leader in a business.
Not true at all. There are often lots of people leading different things. The leader of all the leaders is the board, which isn't one person, it is a committee.
Anthony wrote:
On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 6:35 AM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
There are a lot of differences between a board member and an advisory board member. The most important difference is the dedication. As a board member you MUST attend board meeting, you MUST take part in discussion. As an advisory board member you are not obliged to do that.
Why isn't it? What's the difference? Is it just an ego thing? People are willing to commit to something if they can put "board member" on their resume, but not if they can put "advisory board member" on it?
No, it is not an ego thing. It is just that. Some people don't want to be so involved. The board is the head of the Foundation, it is an essential part of it. This is the reason why the board is so dedicated. There are other organization that work otherwise, with more than hundred board members who mostly don't really take part in board work. But the WMF board works otherwise. We are a working board. There are experts who don't want to be so dedicated. They are friendly to us. They are ok to help if they can and if they have time for it, but they don't want to give that a dedicated commitment. They are still very valuable and helpful members of advisory board.
2009/8/27 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de:
Anthony wrote:
On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 6:35 AM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
There are a lot of differences between a board member and an advisory board member. The most important difference is the dedication. As a board member you MUST attend board meeting, you MUST take part in discussion. As an advisory board member you are not obliged to do that.
Why isn't it? What's the difference? Is it just an ego thing? People are willing to commit to something if they can put "board member" on their resume, but not if they can put "advisory board member" on it?
No, it is not an ego thing. It is just that. Some people don't want to be so involved. The board is the head of the Foundation, it is an essential part of it. This is the reason why the board is so dedicated. There are other organization that work otherwise, with more than hundred board members who mostly don't really take part in board work. But the WMF board works otherwise. We are a working board. There are experts who don't want to be so dedicated. They are friendly to us. They are ok to help if they can and if they have time for it, but they don't want to give that a dedicated commitment. They are still very valuable and helpful members of advisory board.
a) Could you give an example of an organisation with over 100 board members?
b) You haven't answered the question. Why couldn't the dedicated experts that currently go on the board of trustees go on the advisory board instead?
Thomas Dalton wrote:
a) Could you give an example of an organisation with over 100 board members?
IOC has, ok only more than 70 members, not totally 100.
b) You haven't answered the question. Why couldn't the dedicated experts that currently go on the board of trustees go on the advisory board instead?
Actually I had, because not all advisory board members want to have that sort of dedication. There are other reasons too. For example because an advisory board member don't have certain authority against the staff, and because in a lot of cases you cannot definitively say here ends the strategic planning and there starts the othervise function.
2009/8/28 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
a) Could you give an example of an organisation with over 100 board members?
IOC has, ok only more than 70 members, not totally 100.
The IOC Executive Board (which is the relevant body to compare to) has 15 members.
http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/ioc/executive/index_uk.asp
b) You haven't answered the question. Why couldn't the dedicated experts that currently go on the board of trustees go on the advisory board instead?
Actually I had, because not all advisory board members want to have that sort of dedication.
That's not an answer at all. I'm not talking about all advisory board members. I'm talking about people that are currently board members, so obviously are that dedicated. You really aren't listening. My proposal isn't complicated, you should be able to understand it.
There are other reasons too. For example because an advisory board member don't have certain authority against the staff, and because in a lot of cases you cannot definitively say here ends the strategic planning and there starts the othervise function.
Now we're getting to some real reasons. I don't agree regarding authority - the board as a collective body has the authority, they can exercise that authority on behalf of an advisory board member if necessary. The difficulty in drawing lines between different parts of the role is valid, though. I expect it can be overcome with some effort, however.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 11:34 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
2009/8/28 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de:
There are other reasons too. For example because an advisory board member don't have certain authority against the staff, and because in a lot of cases you cannot definitively say here ends the strategic planning and there starts the othervise function.
Now we're getting to some real reasons. I don't agree regarding authority - the board as a collective body has the authority, they can exercise that authority on behalf of an advisory board member if necessary. The difficulty in drawing lines between different parts of the role is valid, though. I expect it can be overcome with some effort, however.
I think the main valid reason is that it's kind of rude to ask someone like Halprin to commit a certain portion of his quite valuable time to the project, absolutely free, and not to even allow him one board vote (out of what, 10 now?).
I'd rather see a system for experts where "the community" (with a better definition than just whoever makes X edits) ratifies the nominees made by the nomination committee, or at least one where "the community" has the power to remove members. But I'd rather see the Wikimedia Foundation as a membership organization... So whatever.
2009/8/28 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
I think the main valid reason is that it's kind of rude to ask someone like Halprin to commit a certain portion of his quite valuable time to the project, absolutely free, and not to even allow him one board vote (out of what, 10 now?).
I don't see why. I donate lots of my time to the project and don't get any board votes. I would hope (and assume) he took the seat because he supports the cause not because he is power hungry.
I'd rather see a system for experts where "the community" (with a better definition than just whoever makes X edits) ratifies the nominees made by the nomination committee, or at least one where "the community" has the power to remove members. But I'd rather see the Wikimedia Foundation as a membership organization... So whatever.
That is an interesting idea. A ratification process wouldn't be too difficult logistically and would help keep the real power in the hands of the community, where it should be.
The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
2009/8/28 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
I think the main valid reason is that it's kind of rude to ask someone
like
Halprin to commit a certain portion of his quite valuable time to the project, absolutely free, and not to even allow him one board vote (out
of
what, 10 now?).
I don't see why. I donate lots of my time to the project and don't get any board votes.
With all due respect, I'd say your time is worth a lot less than his. Besides, not all people are like you.
I would hope (and assume) he took the seat because he
supports the cause not because he is power hungry.
I would too. Absolutely. But there's something to be said about specifically having a power not granted to you because you're deemed untrustworthy. In fact, on a smaller scale I think that's one of the reasons Wikipedia works.
I'd rather see a system for experts where "the community" (with a better definition than just whoever makes X edits) ratifies the nominees made by the nomination committee, or at least one where "the community" has the power to remove members. But I'd rather see the Wikimedia Foundation as
a
membership organization... So whatever.
That is an interesting idea. A ratification process wouldn't be too difficult logistically and would help keep the real power in the hands of the community, where it should be.
The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical.
It's not practical in the sense that there's not a snowball's chance in hell of the board agreeing to it, but I don't see why it's not practical otherwise. The biggest reason people give is that they would want to become a member without revealing their identity. To them I say either get over it, or contribute to the individual project(s) without having membership in the foundation.
Of course, that leads back to the fact that some (many?) people are not willing to volunteer for an organization when they have a power not granted to them because they are deemed untrustworthy. Of course, in this case, I say we can do without those people.
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
[...] The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
Why? What's broken at the moment? The servers are running, and I really cannot see how a different form of organization would have any favourable impact on a few million people writing the best free encyclopedia (*1) in this solar sys- tem. Not to speak of this thing with the sum of all know- ledge being shared by every single human being.
If for each message sent in this thread, one article was checked for vandalism according to Anthony's proposal, he could present some results in a few days. If one article was checked each time a message in this thread is read somewhere around the globe, he'd be done in a few minutes.
Tim
(*1) ... and dictionary and books and media repository and ...
2009/8/28 Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de:
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
[...] The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
Why? What's broken at the moment? The servers are running, and I really cannot see how a different form of organization would have any favourable impact on a few million people writing the best free encyclopedia (*1) in this solar sys- tem. Not to speak of this thing with the sum of all know- ledge being shared by every single human being.
I think most people want the WMF to do more than just keep the servers running, though. It is the extra stuff that depends on good governance.
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
[...] The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
Why? What's broken at the moment? The servers are running, and I really cannot see how a different form of organization would have any favourable impact on a few million people writing the best free encyclopedia (*1) in this solar sys- tem. Not to speak of this thing with the sum of all know- ledge being shared by every single human being.
I think most people want the WMF to do more than just keep the servers running, though. It is the extra stuff that depends on good governance.
I did not ask what you think other people want, I asked what you think is broken at the moment and how that could be mended by another form of organization.
Tim
2009/8/28 Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de:
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
[...] The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
Why? What's broken at the moment? The servers are running, and I really cannot see how a different form of organization would have any favourable impact on a few million people writing the best free encyclopedia (*1) in this solar sys- tem. Not to speak of this thing with the sum of all know- ledge being shared by every single human being.
I think most people want the WMF to do more than just keep the servers running, though. It is the extra stuff that depends on good governance.
I did not ask what you think other people want, I asked what you think is broken at the moment and how that could be mended by another form of organization.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." is a good principle for maintaining the status quo, it isn't a good principle if you want progress. The job isn't done yet, so progress would be good. If you want progress you have to be willing to implement enhancements as well as fixes. One of the main fundamental problems I have found with the WMF is with regards to prioritising. Often the WMF doesn't prioritise the same things as the community seems to want. The dumps that Anthony mentioned is a good example of that - a significant number of community members complained about the dumps not working for years before much progress was made and they still aren't completely working. The tech team prioritised other things over the dumps, had the community had the final say they may have done otherwise (or they may not, no detailed discussion of the options ever took place in public so it is difficult to know what conclusion would have been reached).
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
[...] "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." is a good principle for maintaining the status quo, it isn't a good principle if you want progress. The job isn't done yet, so progress would be good. If you want progress you have to be willing to implement enhancements as well as fixes. One of the main fundamental problems I have found with the WMF is with regards to prioritising. Often the WMF doesn't prioritise the same things as the community seems to want. The dumps that Anthony mentioned is a good example of that - a significant number of community members complained about the dumps not working for years before much progress was made and they still aren't completely working. The tech team prioritised other things over the dumps, had the community had the final say they may have done otherwise (or they may not, no detailed discussion of the options ever took place in public so it is difficult to know what conclusion would have been reached).
Given the fact that no candidate for the board seems to have campaigned prominently for this issue in this year's elec- tion and it does not even seem to have been mentioned in the two before, I do not see why the board should have decided otherwise.
As the re-prioritization seems to have primarily been triggered by River's rant to this very list, do you find his behaviour or the subsequent board decision disrepectful of the community?
Tim
On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.dewrote:
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
[...] "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." is a good principle for maintaining the status quo, it isn't a good principle if you want progress. The job isn't done yet, so progress would be good. If you want progress you have to be willing to implement enhancements as well as fixes. One of the main fundamental problems I have found with the WMF is with regards to prioritising. Often the WMF doesn't prioritise the same things as the community seems to want. The dumps that Anthony mentioned is a good example of that - a significant number of community members complained about the dumps not working for years before much progress was made and they still aren't completely working. The tech team prioritised other things over the dumps, had the community had the final say they may have done otherwise (or they may not, no detailed discussion of the options ever took place in public so it is difficult to know what conclusion would have been reached).
Given the fact that no candidate for the board seems to have campaigned prominently for this issue in this year's elec- tion and it does not even seem to have been mentioned in the two before, I do not see why the board should have decided otherwise.
Well, personally I was responding to the "it ain't broke" part, rather than proposing a fix. I don't think having all the board members elected by the current Special:Boardvote rules would fix the dumps. In fact, I think if anything it would keep the dumps broken longer.
One of the biggest problems is that the WMF doesn't really have "a community". The individual projects have communities, which to some extent overlap, I wouldn't call that the WMF community. Activity on a single project is all that's needed for eligibility to vote for board members. There's no need to even feign commitment to the larger goals of the foundation as a whole.
I guess there's now a wiki for the WMF community: strategy.wikimedia.org.
Tim Landscheidt wrote:
Given the fact that no candidate for the board seems to have campaigned prominently for this issue in this year's elec- tion and it does not even seem to have been mentioned in the two before, I do not see why the board should have decided otherwise.
As the re-prioritization seems to have primarily been triggered by River's rant to this very list, do you find his behaviour or the subsequent board decision disrepectful of the community?
This is not actually that large a surprise as it seems.
A candidate choosing dumps as his main plank of attack in running for the board would most likely be perceived as somebody working as a Trojan Horse for a serious attempt to fork.
The one thing good dumps preserve is the possibility of rejuvenating our projects should WMF ever fail - heaven forfend! But they also not-inconsequently are vital to an attempt at forking, even while the WMF were alive and well.
So as a former candidate, let me just state that for the best of reasons - sustainability - dumps are indeed a priority for all that take sustainability seriously. This is not a matter of opinion, but just a bald fact.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen < cimonavaro@gmail.com> wrote:
Tim Landscheidt wrote:
Given the fact that no candidate for the board seems to have campaigned prominently for this issue in this year's elec- tion and it does not even seem to have been mentioned in the two before, I do not see why the board should have decided otherwise.
As the re-prioritization seems to have primarily been triggered by River's rant to this very list, do you find his behaviour or the subsequent board decision disrepectful of the community?
This is not actually that large a surprise as it seems.
A candidate choosing dumps as his main plank of attack in running for the board would most likely be perceived as somebody working as a Trojan Horse for a serious attempt to fork.
The one thing good dumps preserve is the possibility of rejuvenating our projects should WMF ever fail - heaven forfend! But they also not-inconsequently are vital to an attempt at forking, even while the WMF were alive and well.
So as a former candidate, let me just state that for the best of reasons - sustainability - dumps are indeed a priority for all that take sustainability seriously. This is not a matter of opinion, but just a bald fact.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
The dumps are not needed for a fork. Sure, the dumps would be convenient to someone who wanted to fork, but that's a long shot once per decade serious discussion and the fork could be achieved without the dump. Dumps are primarily useful to researchers, to mirrors, to people interested in archiving a copy of all knowledge on their computer, and only as an ancillary affordance should they be thought of as being there for forkers.
Hello,
Given the fact that no candidate for the board seems to have campaigned prominently for this issue in this year's elec- tion and it does not even seem to have been mentioned in the two before, I do not see why the board should have decided otherwise.
You poor souls, always willing to see just black. Board has raised the topic of dumps multiple times, and I personally as a board member, not as a volunteer, discussed this issue with people responsible in the staff, still, I see "promoting dumps technology" as somewhat way too low level for board candidacy platform.
Anyway, back then it didn't need board member campaigning - whole board knew it is important task, it needed executive level decision, that we need someone dedicated to this task, and once such discussion was made, dumps started rolling. I don't remember anyone in the board who wouldn't treat this as a priority issue. There wasn't anyone in tech team who wouldn't think it is an important issue. There wasn't anyone in organization who'd think it wasn't an important issue. And yes, it was matter of overall priorities execution, which got resolved somehow, right?
Thomas wrote:
The tech team prioritised other things over the dumps, had the community had the final say they may have done otherwise
Or not done anything \o/
You seem to fail to understand, that for years tech team was also a volunteer body - though of course, eventually more and more people got on the paycheck. Well, even after getting the paycheck, extreme-skill people are motivated way more when they believe in what they are doing, and just having the "community have a final say" won't help with it. Frankly, the major input about the dumps that the tech team got from the community was "you suck where are our dumps" kind of input - with lots of whining and no rationalization :-) Well, thats the impression probably caused by few people on few people :)
Cheers, Domas
P.S. And community doesn't want direct technology expertise at the board level anyway, mwaha ;-)
On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 3:48 AM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.comwrote:
Anyway, back then it didn't need board member campaigning - whole board knew it is important task, it needed executive level decision, that we need someone dedicated to this task, and once such discussion was made, dumps started rolling.
Right...where can I go to download the full history English Wikipedia dump?
Still doesn't work. And yes, it needs an executive level decision, and it needs a kick in the ass from the board to get the executive level to make that decision.
How many millions of dollars were left unspent by the tech team a couple years ago?
And yes, it was matter of overall priorities
execution, which got resolved somehow, right?
It's not resolved. And even if it got resolved today, that'd still be three years too late.
You seem to fail to understand, that for years tech team was also a volunteer body - though of course, eventually more and more people got on the paycheck.
And whose fault is that? The fault of the CTO, which is in turn the fault of the board.
Frankly, the major input about the dumps that the tech team got from the community was "you suck where are our dumps" kind of input - with lots of whining and no rationalization :-)
No "rationalization"? I can't say I understand what you're asking for. The dumps will be fixed when *one person* is put in charge of fixing them, and when that person has at least several hours a week to dedicate to the task. The dumps aren't like encyclopedia articles. You can't have a bunch of people adding little things here and there and expect a working product, and it's unrealistic to expect someone to take charge of this sort of thing for free, especially in the current economy.
Hi!
Right...where can I go to download the full history English Wikipedia dump?
It is being done!
Still doesn't work. And yes, it needs an executive level decision, and it needs a kick in the ass from the board to get the executive level to make that decision.
That work is being done at the moment, I'd think that it is being handled properly. On the other hand, I'm no longer in position of judging that from above, and can enjoy fully not caring ;-)
How many millions of dollars were left unspent by the tech team a couple years ago?
How many?
It's not resolved. And even if it got resolved today, that'd still be three years too late.
We're how many years late with WYSIWYG? :)
And whose fault is that? The fault of the CTO, which is in turn the fault of the board.
Why are you looking for faults? CTO had to operate under constraints set by financial management, financial management was done based on conservative non-profit operation model.
No "rationalization"? I can't say I understand what you're asking for. The dumps will be fixed when *one person* is put in charge of fixing them, and when that person has at least several hours a week to dedicate to the task.
Is that something I don't know? Thats exactly what I was telling to anyone interested. Thanks for repeating what I said :)
The dumps aren't like encyclopedia articles.
Thats lots and lots of encyclopedia articles!
You can't have a bunch of people adding little things here and there and expect a working product, and it's unrealistic to expect someone to take charge of this sort of thing for free, especially in the current economy.
You seem to have entirely failing understanding of motivation technology volunteers can have. We have amazing project work done on search by Robert, toolserver operation by River, do note, how much work on CDN infrastructure that was done by Mark, or simply all the work done before by Brion and Tim.
Whole our technology infrastructure is built by people who have insane amount of project-derived motivation. You seem not to notice it. Pity.
On the other hand, it isn't "someone to take charge ... for free", it is just some work that motivates too much, and Tomasz does great job at it, even though he doesn't entirely forfeit his social life to have this move faster :)
Domas
Still doesn't work. And yes, it needs an executive level decision, and it needs a kick in the ass from the board to get the executive level to make that decision.
That work is being done at the moment, I'd think that it is being handled properly. On the other hand, I'm no longer in position of judging that from above, and can enjoy fully not caring ;-)
I'll believe it when I see it. AFAICT, the dumps still don't work, and you still haven't hired a new CTO.
How many millions of dollars were left unspent by the tech team a couple years ago?
How many?
1.7
Why are you looking for faults?
The first step in fixing a problem is identifying the faults.
CTO had to operate under constraints set by financial management, financial management was done based on conservative non-profit operation model.
The CTO came up with a budget. He submitted that budget. That budget was accepted. Then the money which was budgeted went unspent, while glaring problems which required spending remained.
You can't have a bunch of people adding little things here and there and expect a working product, and it's unrealistic to expect someone to take charge of this sort of thing for free, especially in the current economy.
You seem to have entirely failing understanding of motivation technology volunteers can have.
It's not a matter of motivation, it's a matter of reality. If you're going to limit your selection to people who are independently wealthy, you're not going to get as many qualified individuals for the task. If there are people willing and able to fix the dumps for free, and you can find them and give them the tools they need to do it, fine. But that didn't happen, and *in this particular case*, it's probably unrealistic. Three years ago, before the economy went into the crapper, you probably could have found someone to do it. I probably would have even done it myself, if someone had given me access to the servers so I could do it. What I remember from the time is that the story was always "this is being worked on", not "we need someone to volunteer to redesign this". Actually I was under the impression then that you didn't really want to fix the dumps - remember this was during the beginning of the oversight days. But today it's probably tougher finding qualified individuals willing and able to do it for free.
Whatever. Whether it's done for free or for a price isn't what's important. What's important is that it gets done.
We have amazing project work done on search by Robert, toolserver
operation by River, do note, how much work on CDN infrastructure that was done by Mark, or simply all the work done before by Brion and Tim.
Have any of these people fixed the dumps? Maybe if the current system wasn't written in Python you could have found someone to do this, but as it was, it simply wasn't a task which anyone was motivated to do for free. "Let's just wait a few years and see if someone turns up" isn't the answer to that problem. "Let's spend a little of this 1.7 million we have sitting in a bank account doing nothing" is.
2009/9/15 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
Still doesn't work. And yes, it needs an executive level decision, and it needs a kick in the ass from the board to get the executive level to make that decision.
That work is being done at the moment, I'd think that it is being handled properly. On the other hand, I'm no longer in position of judging that from above, and can enjoy fully not caring ;-)
I'll believe it when I see it. AFAICT, the dumps still don't work, and you still haven't hired a new CTO.
Progress has been made - we do now have most of the dumps sorted. It is just the full history dump we still don't have.
Hi!
I'll believe it when I see it.
;-)
AFAICT, the dumps still don't work, and you still haven't hired a new CTO.
Dumps work better, and there's work done to get a new CTO.
1.7
How was that budgeted? Which year? Can you point me at that unspent software development budget number?
The first step in fixing a problem is identifying the faults.
Ones known already?
The CTO came up with a budget. He submitted that budget. That budget was accepted. Then the money which was budgeted went unspent, while glaring problems which required spending remained.
You know who'd do better job? I guess WMF would welcome referrals :)
It's not a matter of motivation, it's a matter of reality. If you're going to limit your selection to people who are independently wealthy, you're not going to get as many qualified individuals for the task.
Well, apparently there are people on payroll - so we're not limiting. On the other hand, can we afford proper .com-level salaries to qualified engineers? Even though there's recession, there's always need for good engineers.
If there are people willing and able to fix the dumps for free, and you can find them and give them the tools they need to do it, fine. But that didn't happen, and *in this particular case*, it's probably unrealistic.
Indeed, because this isn't project that is really attractive or rewarding technology-wise. For now we got lots of things done because stuff we did was interesting.
Three years ago, before the economy went into the crapper, you probably could have found someone to do it. I probably would have even done it myself, if someone had given me access to the servers so I could do it.
One doesn't really need access to servers to fix the code. Well, eventually one may need, but that is quite beyond the whole implementation.
What I remember from the time is that the story was always "this is being worked on", not "we need someone to volunteer to redesign this".
Depends whom you were talking to, or maybe they were mistaken about the project, or maybe they were mistaken about themselves committing to it :)
Actually I was under the impression then that you didn't really want to fix the dumps - remember this was during the beginning of the oversight days.
How is that any related?
But today it's probably tougher finding qualified individuals willing and able to do it for free.
I wouldn't be that sure. It was always tough to find anyone experienced enough.
Whatever. Whether it's done for free or for a price isn't what's important. What's important is that it gets done.
It gets done. It is being done.
Have any of these people fixed the dumps?
In a way, everyone did, just probably not enough for your absolute benchmark. Still, all these people volunteered to do great things, requiring more work than dumps. My point is that we can find volunteers for really challenging in- depth projects, it gets a bit more difficult if the project in question does not provide too much motivation.
Maybe if the current system wasn't written in Python you could have found someone to do this, but as it was, it simply wasn't a task which anyone was motivated to do for free.
LOL, replace 'Python' with pretty much any other language, and you can use it again.
"Let's just wait a few years and see if someone turns up" isn't the answer to that problem. "Let's spend a little of this 1.7 million we have sitting in a bank account doing nothing" is.
You are trolling and you're piggy-backing. We have dedicated resources for that, paid out of donations, yes.
Is repeating yourself these things over and over something you're doing to try to support yourself as original author of these ideas?
Cheers, Domas
On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 3:39 PM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.comwrote:
1.7
How was that budgeted? Which year? Can you point me at that unspent software development budget number?
http://blog.p2pedia.org/2008/06/foundation-who-cried-wolf.html
Correct me if I'm wrong, but here's what I can gather: Total spending was $1.7 million less than budgeted. Tech spending was $1.7 million less than budgeted. And $1.7 million was sitting in the bank accounts at the end of the fiscal year.
It's not a matter of motivation, it's a matter of reality. If
you're going to limit your selection to people who are independently wealthy, you're not going to get as many qualified individuals for the task.
Well, apparently there are people on payroll - so we're not limiting. On the other hand, can we afford proper .com-level salaries to qualified engineers?
The solution to not being able to afford "proper .com-level salaries" is to offer people nothing?
I'll fix the dumps for minimum wage plus daycare for my two kids.
If there are people willing and able to fix the dumps for free, and you can find them and give them the tools they need to do it, fine. But that didn't happen, and *in this particular case*, it's probably unrealistic.
Indeed, because this isn't project that is really attractive or rewarding technology-wise.
I don't know about that. It's a pretty cool problem, it's just a difficult one to solve. Or maybe it's a cool problem because it's difficult to solve.
Three years ago, before the economy went into the crapper, you probably could have found someone to do it. I probably would have even done it myself, if someone had given me access to the servers so I could do it.
One doesn't really need access to servers to fix the code. Well, eventually one may need, but that is quite beyond the whole implementation.
It would certainly help. The problem with the dumps is that they're so huge. Not being able to test solutions on a system just as huge is a serious constraint. Plus you have to remember that the WMF's particular installation is not the common one. There's probably enough information out there to pretty much replicate it, but that's another serious constraint. I'm certainly not willing to deal with those unnecessary constraints.
Actually I was under the impression
then that you didn't really want to fix the dumps - remember this was during the beginning of the oversight days.
How is that any related?
It was the existence of the history dumps that enabled Judd and I to find the oversighted SlimVirgin edits.
Whatever. Whether it's done for free or for a price isn't what's important. What's important is that it gets done.
It gets done. It is being done.
Once again, I've heard that for three years now, so forgive me for not believing it until I see it.
Hi!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but here's what I can gather: Total spending was $1.7 million less than budgeted. Tech spending was $1.7 million less than budgeted. And $1.7 million was sitting in the bank accounts at the end of the fiscal year.
We did not spend on hardware, because, well, I explained already in some other email. We did not reallocate the money to hire lots of developers because we didn't know how the hardware spending will look like.
The solution to not being able to afford "proper .com-level salaries" is to offer people nothing?
We're not competitive on the job market. So, if we don't get qualified engineers willing to work for less, what should we do - hire less qualified ones?
I'll fix the dumps for minimum wage plus daycare for my two kids.
;-) Are you for these conditions for other projects too?
I don't know about that. It's a pretty cool problem, it's just a difficult one to solve. Or maybe it's a cool problem because it's difficult to solve.
I find it very boring problem myself. Probably thats because I'm spoiled by really cool problems at work, or maybe somewhat cooler problems at Wikimedia ;-)
It would certainly help. The problem with the dumps is that they're so huge.
They're small. :) And yes, I know what is the problem with dumps :-)
Not being able to test solutions on a system just as huge is a serious constraint.
Problems are known well enough to create quite some work. Resolve 10 "what ifs" and you're nearly done.
Plus you have to remember that the WMF's particular installation is not the common one.
Agreed.
There's probably enough information out there to pretty much replicate it, but that's another serious constraint. I'm certainly not willing to deal with those unnecessary constraints.
OK!
It was the existence of the history dumps that enabled Judd and I to find the oversighted SlimVirgin edits.
That encourages production of dumps, right? :)
Once again, I've heard that for three years now, so forgive me for not believing it until I see it.
OK!
Domas
On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.comwrote:
Hi!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but here's what I can gather: Total spending was $1.7 million less than budgeted. Tech spending was $1.7 million less than budgeted. And $1.7 million was sitting in the bank accounts at the end of the fiscal year.
We did not spend on hardware, because, well, I explained already in some other email. We did not reallocate the money to hire lots of developers because we didn't know how the hardware spending will look like.
And that has proven to be a huge misjudgment.
I'll fix the dumps for minimum wage plus daycare for my two kids.
;-) Are you for these conditions for other projects too?
For tech projects that I find interesting, and can do from home, sure. Daycare alone is $80/day, though.
I don't know about that. It's a pretty cool problem, it's just a
difficult one to solve. Or maybe it's a cool problem because it's difficult to solve.
I find it very boring problem myself. Probably thats because I'm spoiled by really cool problems at work, or maybe somewhat cooler problems at Wikimedia ;-)
Could be. But then, I'm probably interested in different types of problems than you. And I'm not sure you've considered this problem in the same way that I have (I'd like to modify the compressed files "in place", though that short description doesn't really capture the solution).
Hello!
And that has proven to be a huge misjudgment.
Which didn't entirely depend on us. We're a young organization, we depend on lots of external influences. You going and pointing fingers, without trying to understand, that there were reasons to behave in that way, isn't constructive.
Could be. But then, I'm probably interested in different types of problems than you. And I'm not sure you've considered this problem in the same way that I have (I'd like to modify the compressed files "in place", though that short description doesn't really capture the solution).
This is entirely off-topic, and could be continued in wikitech-l, if you're really eager to tell how you modify compressed files "in place". ;-)
Cheers, Domas
On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.comwrote:
Hello!
And that has proven to be a huge misjudgment.
Which didn't entirely depend on us.
The WMF tremendously overestimated future hardware costs by making horrible assumptions, which I pointed out on this very list. That depended entirely on the WMF.
This is entirely off-topic, and could be continued in wikitech-l, if
you're really eager to tell how you modify compressed files "in place". ;-)
I've already posted a lot on the subject on wikitech-l, and I have most of it already working at home. If you'd like me to go further, I've already posted my terms. I'm not eager to tell how I did it. I'm eager to finish it, to put it into place, and to watch it work. And that's not going to happen at this time unless I can get daycare for my kids and a few bucks for myself.
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:55:56 -0400, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
The WMF tremendously overestimated future hardware costs by making
horrible
assumptions, which I pointed out on this very list. That depended
entirely
on the WMF.
The 2007-2008 Wikimedia budget was the company's first systematically built budget ever, and many of the numbers were based on estimates and extrapolations from the previous year's spending which didn't turn out to be as accurate as originally forseen. While it may be fair to criticize it as a sub-ideal budget, it's rather pointless to continue on about it over a year after that fiscal year ended.
You may wish to pay more attention to the 2008-2009 (last FY) and 2009-2010 (current FY) budgets if you're interested in oversight.
As for the decision not to immediately reassign overbudgeted monies to other unbudgeted uses -- money doesn't just disappear at the end of the fiscal year! Spending money for the sole purpose of using up the budget before year-end would have been gross mismanagement and would likely have been harshly criticized. Given the relatively new company leadership and the uncertainly of how fundraising might go, treating donors' money conservatively makes a lot of sense.
Instead of spending it on anything we could think of right away, donors' money was kept in store so it could be spent more wisely under future budgets. Over the last couple years we've been building up our human capacity, and we're now in a position where we actually can do and are bringing in a lot of new staff and contract developers, both to the general pool and on specific project teams.
I'm afraid we're not in a position to change what we spent two years ago; all we can change is what we're spending today, and I don't really see anything for you to object to. We *are* hiring more tech staff as you recommend. We *have* assigned the dump fixing to a single responsible individual as you recommend (and everything is now working except the English full-history, which is still being worked on). We *are* hiring a new CTO with a strong administrative background, as you recommend.
What's left?
-- brion
2009/9/15 Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com:
This is entirely off-topic, and could be continued in wikitech-l, if you're really eager to tell how you modify compressed files "in place". ;-)
You can decode bzipped files an arbitrary block at a time (which makes reader apps surprisingly viable on devices with only a few gig of flash). Modifying them ... that's a bit like fun!
- d.
2009/9/15 Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com:
Thomas wrote:
The tech team prioritised other things over the dumps, had the community had the final say they may have done otherwise
Or not done anything \o/
I said as much. I wasn't trying to suggest a definite solution, I was just responding to the claim that there was nothing to fix.
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
The tech team prioritised other things over the dumps, had the community had the final say they may have done otherwise
Or not done anything \o/
I said as much. I wasn't trying to suggest a definite solution, I was just responding to the claim that there was nothing to fix.
JFTR: I did not claim in any way that there was nothing to fix. I asked what - in your opinion - was to be fixed and how a different form of organization - in your opinion - would affect that process positively.
Tim
2009/9/15 Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de:
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
The tech team prioritised other things over the dumps, had the community had the final say they may have done otherwise
Or not done anything \o/
I said as much. I wasn't trying to suggest a definite solution, I was just responding to the claim that there was nothing to fix.
JFTR: I did not claim in any way that there was nothing to fix. I asked what - in your opinion - was to be fixed and how a different form of organization - in your opinion - would affect that process positively.
Apologies for misrepresenting you. My point stands, though - I wasn't trying to suggest a definite solution.
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
The tech team prioritised other things over the dumps, had the community had the final say they may have done otherwise
Or not done anything \o/
I said as much. I wasn't trying to suggest a definite solution, I was just responding to the claim that there was nothing to fix.
JFTR: I did not claim in any way that there was nothing to fix. I asked what - in your opinion - was to be fixed and how a different form of organization - in your opinion - would affect that process positively.
Apologies for misrepresenting you. My point stands, though - I wasn't trying to suggest a definite solution.
What "point"? That a different form of organization may have led to different results?
Tim
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.dewrote:
Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
[...] The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
Why? What's broken at the moment?
The English full-history dump, for one.
Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
[...] The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
Why? What's broken at the moment?
The English full-history dump, for one.
And that would work if the WMF were a membership organiza- tion? Interesting.
Tim
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 3:35 PM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.dewrote:
Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
[...] The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
Why? What's broken at the moment?
The English full-history dump, for one.
And that would work if the WMF were a membership organiza- tion? Interesting.
I have no idea if it would or wouldn't, but it's certainly within the power of the board to pressure Sue to hire a CTO sooner rather than later. It's certainly also within the power of the board to ensure that budgets are set honestly and that the money allocated to technology is spent on technology, not on the office of the executive director.
2009/8/28 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
I have no idea if it would or wouldn't, but it's certainly within the power of the board to pressure Sue to hire a CTO sooner rather than later. It's certainly also within the power of the board to ensure that budgets are set honestly and that the money allocated to technology is spent on technology, not on the office of the executive director.
Has tech money been spent on other things previously? That is news to me.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
2009/8/28 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
I have no idea if it would or wouldn't, but it's certainly within the
power
of the board to pressure Sue to hire a CTO sooner rather than later.
It's
certainly also within the power of the board to ensure that budgets are
set
honestly and that the money allocated to technology is spent on
technology,
not on the office of the executive director.
Has tech money been spent on other things previously? That is news to me.
Depends how you want to look at it, since the dollar bills aren't color coded or anything. But the last budget I bothered to look at (which I believe is the one before the last one released) was underspent in the area of technology and overspent in other areas. So I think it's valid to say that "tech money was spent on other things". As I said, I didn't even bother looking at the last budget. After hearing Sue admit that the one I'm talking about was padded, there was little point.
2009/8/28 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
Depends how you want to look at it, since the dollar bills aren't color coded or anything. But the last budget I bothered to look at (which I believe is the one before the last one released) was underspent in the area of technology and overspent in other areas. So I think it's valid to say that "tech money was spent on other things". As I said, I didn't even bother looking at the last budget. After hearing Sue admit that the one I'm talking about was padded, there was little point.
There were explanations for all those over- and under-spends. I considered them all to be good explanations. I would have to look at the report again to be sure, but I think there was a better than budgeted surplus in the year you are talking about, so the reason for not spending the full tech budget wasn't lack of funds from having spent them elsewhere.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
2009/8/28 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
Depends how you want to look at it, since the dollar bills aren't color coded or anything. But the last budget I bothered to look at (which I believe is the one before the last one released) was underspent in the
area
of technology and overspent in other areas. So I think it's valid to say that "tech money was spent on other things". As I said, I didn't even bother looking at the last budget. After hearing Sue admit that the one
I'm
talking about was padded, there was little point.
There were explanations for all those over- and under-spends. I considered them all to be good explanations. I would have to look at the report again to be sure, but I think there was a better than budgeted surplus in the year you are talking about, so the reason for not spending the full tech budget wasn't lack of funds from having spent them elsewhere.
Regardless, I wish they had spent the full tech budget, hired an experienced CTO, and fixed the dumps. Plus a bunch of other things (I don't think single-user-login had yet been implemented, and I'm pretty sure most of the more advanced features which supposedly depended on single-user-login like cross-project watchlists still haven't been implemented).
As you said, whether or not that would have happened given a different board structure, who knows. But I think there's a chance it would have been better.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.dewrote:
Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
[...] The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't think it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
Why? What's broken at the moment?
The English full-history dump, for one.
And that would work if the WMF were a membership organiza- tion? Interesting.
Tim
If it were once again a membership organization it would imply that the Foundation had not reneged on the original vision without the ability of the community, which approved that vision, to provide input on the modified input. It would turn around the Foundation's usurping of community power. It would give each community member a voice.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.dewrote:
Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
[...] The WMF as a membership organisation would be great, but I don't
think
it is practical. A better option (which I have discussed with a few poeple) would be having the chapters as members of the WMF and the community as members of the chapters. There are other global non-profits that work along those lines. (The International
Federation
of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, for example.)
Why? What's broken at the moment?
The English full-history dump, for one.
And that would work if the WMF were a membership organiza- tion? Interesting.
Tim
If it were once again a membership organization it would imply that the Foundation had not reneged on the original vision without the ability of the community, which approved that vision, to provide input on the modified input. It would turn around the Foundation's usurping of community power. It would give each community member a voice.
Sorry, "input" is an overloaded word for me due to my occupation in neural networks. I happen to be working with several "input layers" right now and flubbed that entirely ;) But it should say, "to provide input on the modified vision."
2009/8/27 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de:
There are a lot of differences between a board member and an advisory board member. The most important difference is the dedication. As a board member you MUST attend board meeting, you MUST take part in discussion. As an advisory board member you are not obliged to do that.
That's only because we don't specify such an obligation. There is nothing stopping us having such an obligation included in the rules for the advisory board.
The best examples you can see are Stu West and Jan-Bard de Vreede. Stu with his technical and financial expertise is simply there, in every meeting, in the board mailing list, we don't have to go out and ask someone from the outside, especially because these expertise are really direly needed in every meeting and most of our topics.
Brion and Véronique have that expertise and could easily be brought in to whatever meetings they are needed for.
The same is it with the organizational expertise that Jan-Bard brings into the board both in how an ordinary procedure should look like as well as how discipline must be excercised in the board.
Sue seems to be pretty good at that kind of thing.
The only time I can see that using staff expertise wouldn't work is when you are fulfilling the oversight role of the board and need to check up on those staff members. In those situations, an expert on the advisory board could be consulted. Does that kind of checking up happen in every board meeting?
Thomas Dalton wrote:
The best examples you can see are Stu West and Jan-Bard de Vreede. Stu with his technical and financial expertise is simply there, in every meeting, in the board mailing list, we don't have to go out and ask someone from the outside, especially because these expertise are really direly needed in every meeting and most of our topics.
Brion and Véronique have that expertise and could easily be brought in to whatever meetings they are needed for.
This is incomprehensible to me. One of the key responsibilities of the board is to oversee the work of the staff. That requires a combination of the board's own expertise plus outside advisors on occasion to supplement this. Brion and Veronique do great work and we need their expertise in doing it, and occasionally they may be brought into our meetings to provide information. But it would be totally abdicating our responsibilities for us to call on that expertise in order to review the work they themselves did.
--Michael Snow
2009/8/27 Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
The best examples you can see are Stu West and Jan-Bard de Vreede. Stu with his technical and financial expertise is simply there, in every meeting, in the board mailing list, we don't have to go out and ask someone from the outside, especially because these expertise are really direly needed in every meeting and most of our topics.
Brion and Véronique have that expertise and could easily be brought in to whatever meetings they are needed for.
This is incomprehensible to me. One of the key responsibilities of the board is to oversee the work of the staff. That requires a combination of the board's own expertise plus outside advisors on occasion to supplement this. Brion and Veronique do great work and we need their expertise in doing it, and occasionally they may be brought into our meetings to provide information. But it would be totally abdicating our responsibilities for us to call on that expertise in order to review the work they themselves did.
If you read the entire email I sent you will find that I addressed exactly that point. Please don't selectively quote to misrepresent people, it is either extremely stupid, extremely immature or extremely malicious, and I'm not happy with any of those qualities in the chair of the WMF board.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
2009/8/27 Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
The best examples you can see are Stu West and Jan-Bard de Vreede. Stu with his technical and financial expertise is simply there, in every meeting, in the board mailing list, we don't have to go out and ask someone from the outside, especially because these expertise are really direly needed in every meeting and most of our topics.
Brion and Véronique have that expertise and could easily be brought in to whatever meetings they are needed for.
This is incomprehensible to me. One of the key responsibilities of the board is to oversee the work of the staff. That requires a combination of the board's own expertise plus outside advisors on occasion to supplement this. Brion and Veronique do great work and we need their expertise in doing it, and occasionally they may be brought into our meetings to provide information. But it would be totally abdicating our responsibilities for us to call on that expertise in order to review the work they themselves did.
If you read the entire email I sent you will find that I addressed exactly that point. Please don't selectively quote to misrepresent people, it is either extremely stupid, extremely immature or extremely malicious, and I'm not happy with any of those qualities in the chair of the WMF board.
As the portion of your email making that caveat did not appear until after quoting another portion of Ting's message, suggesting that it would be addressing some other aspect of the discussion, I missed that you had hedged what seemed to be a pretty plain statement. Honestly, considering the significance of this responsibility, I would have expected the sentence to be qualified immediately since the point negates so much of the basic assertion.
Meanwhile, there have been a lot of messages to read on this list recently, and I've learned as part of list etiquette to trim replies to the material you're responding to, as a courtesy to readers. I apologize for overlooking the additional context as a result, but I had no intention of misrepresenting you and I don't think it was particularly stupid, immature, or malicious.
--Michael Snow
2009/8/28 Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net:
As the portion of your email making that caveat did not appear until after quoting another portion of Ting's message, suggesting that it would be addressing some other aspect of the discussion, I missed that you had hedged what seemed to be a pretty plain statement. Honestly, considering the significance of this responsibility, I would have expected the sentence to be qualified immediately since the point negates so much of the basic assertion.
Meanwhile, there have been a lot of messages to read on this list recently, and I've learned as part of list etiquette to trim replies to the material you're responding to, as a courtesy to readers. I apologize for overlooking the additional context as a result, but I had no intention of misrepresenting you and I don't think it was particularly stupid, immature, or malicious.
Apology accepted. I'll classify it as "careless" instead. It really is important to read the whole of a message and not jump to conclusions half way through. I don't expect people to stop reading half way through so my emails will frequently not make sense if you do so.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
That's only because we don't specify such an obligation. There is nothing stopping us having such an obligation included in the rules for the advisory board.
Yes there are. See my answer to Antony about dedication.
Brion and Véronique have that expertise and could easily be brought in to whatever meetings they are needed for.
Sue seems to be pretty good at that kind of thing.
Naturally are staff expertise very important for the board, but they cannot substitute board expertise. The board must have expertise of its own to supervise the staff. Replace the role that Jan-Bart is taking on the board with Sue would be a good example of bad governance.
2009/8/28 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
That's only because we don't specify such an obligation. There is nothing stopping us having such an obligation included in the rules for the advisory board.
Yes there are. See my answer to Antony about dedication.
I did see your answer. I didn't see any reason for not having dedicated people on the advisory board.
Brion and Véronique have that expertise and could easily be brought in to whatever meetings they are needed for.
Sue seems to be pretty good at that kind of thing.
Naturally are staff expertise very important for the board, but they cannot substitute board expertise. The board must have expertise of its own to supervise the staff. Replace the role that Jan-Bart is taking on the board with Sue would be a good example of bad governance.
As I've already said, the oversight part of the job can be assisted by advisory board members. I would expect you to know what kind of expertise you will need for oversight as soon as the agenda is put together, so the appropriate advisory board members can be invited. It is the discussions about future direction that are likely to need unexpected expertise and there is no reason not to use staff for that.
Ting Chen wrote:
Hi Thomas,
one year ago when I run for the board election I came with the same proposal as you. Meanwhile I have changed my oppinion. The problem is that this would not work out.
I totally agree with you that voting is the minor part of the board decision making process. Actually in many cases it is only for the protocol and formality. The really big part is before voting, while discussion. Here you are totally right.
There are a lot of differences between a board member and an advisory board member. The most important difference is the dedication. As a board member you MUST attend board meeting, you MUST take part in discussion. As an advisory board member you are not obliged to do that. Naturally, if we have an issue and we feel lack of expertise, or simply because we want to get more input from more sources, we go out and ask members of the advisory board. This is for example why some of our committees has advisory board member in it. This is also why the advisory board would play a crucial role in the strategic planning. But it is totally different between that expertise is already inside of the board or if the expertise must at first be asked from outside of the board. The best examples you can see are Stu West and Jan-Bard de Vreede. Stu with his technical and financial expertise is simply there, in every meeting, in the board mailing list, we don't have to go out and ask someone from the outside, especially because these expertise are really direly needed in every meeting and most of our topics. The same is it with the organizational expertise that Jan-Bard brings into the board both in how an ordinary procedure should look like as well as how discipline must be excercised in the board. This is the reason why they are asked to be on the board again and again and why they hold so important offices in the board. Indeed, my experience with both of them is why I have changed my opinion. I don't know Matt that long yet, just met him in one board meeting. But I do feel that in this one meeting he gave very interesting and important insights. For example how measurement of success should look like. There are also other reasons why we need expert seats. One is that sometimes you are in a discussion and stumbles over something where you didn't see the need of an expert before but where you feel really thankful to have one in the board. Naturally you can say, hey, we need here an expertise, let us at first ask someone in the advisory board and then make a decision. This actually happend in the past year more than once. But this is a slow process, you would go out and e-mail that person, she or he would answer, there would maybe more questions that you would ask again, or the board must first discuss internally and then ask again. This is totally different as if you have already that expertise in the meeting and can directly go forward. I also need not to mention that it is totally different to talk with someone from face to face or via e-mail and we cannot fly all advisory board members whose expertise are needed in to the board meeting.
As I said before I had the same idea as you last year. But some times a change of perspective or new experiences show that the idea doesn't work.
Greetings Ting
Incidently, in the context of the strategic planning process, I talked this morning with Laura and Barry from the Bridgespan Group, as well as with Eugene yesterday.
From what I understood, the Bridgespan Group is trying to interview all advisory board members to collect information and feedback for the work started on the strategic wiki (http://strategy.wikimedia.org).
I think that is an excellent way to make use of the Advisory Board member and I thank them for our implication in that process.
Ant
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