Hey All
Here is my statement of apology which I sent to my fellow board members Dec 19, 2015 and which has been commented on by a number of them on this list:
To my fellow board members,
After our conversation today it dawned upon me that I have not communicated well just how much I have learned from this difficult process. Over the last month I have put a great deal of thought into what has brought us to where we are today.
First off, I acknowledge a large degree of responsibility for it. My actions showed inexperience. What I did was out of process. I did not communicate sufficiently. I ignored some of the advice that I received.
Still, it seems I have not apologized in a meaningful way I want to say clearly that I am sorry for my arrogant start as a board member, and for the disruption it caused.
I need to mention how much I appreciate all the extra effort from other board members to constructively address the issues we have been facing. I especially note Guy and Jimmy's efforts with respect to putting in place extra measures so that the staff can be heard.
While we have disagreed, I have committed to and have supported our final decision. I have followed the agreed process since our deliberations. I believe I have constructively contributed to the fact that the WMF staff has taken the Board’s decision with a measured degree of acceptance. I have been working hard on getting WMF staff, as well as other stakeholders on board.
I have seriously considered stepping down; however, I am not one to give up easily. I do learn from my mistakes. I know that I have great deal to offer the board and feel a deep sense of responsibility to the community that elected me.
You do need a Board member you can trust. I would like to ask you to give me the second chance to prove that I deserve your trust--I intend to work hard to earn it. Our board made the decision to give Lila a second chance in the face of staff mistrust. In the long road ahead to improve our movement, I would like to have the same opportunity to continue working together with you as well.
Sincerely,
James Heilman
I hope some day someone will be bold enough to tell the rest of us what this is all really about. I'm sure I'm not alone (though perhaps in the minority!) in not having inside staff contacts to provide the straight dope.
On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 12:43 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
I hope some day someone will be bold enough to tell the rest of us what this is all really about. I'm sure I'm not alone (though perhaps in the minority!) in not having inside staff contacts to provide the straight dope.
I think it's quite clear what's going on. Signpost [1] and Liam's post [2] have good descriptions (with some of the positions) of what happened. Plus, James was on the side of the discontent part of staff (which seems to be the majority) and didn't articulate his position well.
And as I suppose this is the ongoing general-type thread, I'd say few words in relation to that.
Our technology is based on the concept from 1990s, implemented in 2001 and slightly changed up to the moment. The only major technology which catches 2005 (Visual Editor) is in alpha or beta stage, depending on how harsh QA process would be implemented.
Something should be done with that. While I would be much more happy with a social and gaming platform, I think anything towards technology innovation is good, as during the last 15 years our technology innovation was around zero. The most important Sue's impact on Wikimedia is financial stability. I expect that the most important Lila's impact on Wikimedia will be moving it from technologically passive organization to an active one.
Restructuring one organization is hard process. I mean, if I found myself feeling offended because of moving coffee machine away from the door of my office and putting it on more appropriate place, I completely understand that any larger change could produce significant discontent.
On top of that, unlike Sue, Lila is a geek. And geeks have troubles in understanding the social impact of their actions, especially inside of the extraordinary complex environment of Wikimedia movement.
The only solution for such situations is constructive communication. And constructive communication. And more constructive communication.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-01-06/News_a... [2] http://wittylama.com/2016/01/08/strategy-and-controversy/
On 9 January 2016 at 02:07, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On top of that, unlike Sue, Lila is a geek. And geeks have troubles in understanding the social impact of their actions, especially inside of the extraordinary complex environment of Wikimedia movement.
You aren't seriously trying that argument are you? in any case it doesn't really help since people skills are a job requirement for WMF ED.
Milos Rancic wrote:
Our technology is based on the concept from 1990s, implemented in 2001 and slightly changed up to the moment. The only major technology which catches 2005 (Visual Editor) is in alpha or beta stage, depending on how harsh QA process would be implemented.
Something should be done with that. While I would be much more happy with a social and gaming platform, I think anything towards technology innovation is good, as during the last 15 years our technology innovation was around zero. The most important Sue's impact on Wikimedia is financial stability. I expect that the most important Lila's impact on Wikimedia will be moving it from technologically passive organization to an active one.
I think we should have you use only UseModWiki for a few months and then you can come back and tell us whether we've actually made any improvements to our technology stack since 2001. :-)
In parts, our sites certainly look staid, dated, or even boring, but we have a number of cool new features, with more to come, of course. Briefly putting all of this recent drama and in-fighting aside, the most vital part of the Wikimedia Foundation's responsibilities, keeping the sites running fast, reliably, and securely, is being appropriately handled. The world continues to be able to read and contribute to our shared free content and for that I'm grateful. The rest is commentary, as they say.
MZMcBride
On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 9:48 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9 January 2016 at 02:07, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On top of that, unlike Sue, Lila is a geek. And geeks have troubles in understanding the social impact of their actions, especially inside of the extraordinary complex environment of Wikimedia movement.
You aren't seriously trying that argument are you? in any case it doesn't really help since people skills are a job requirement for WMF ED.
I tried to shorten the explanation, but, obviously it didn't work :)
The position of WMF ED is likely the most complex position inside of the Wikimedia movement. Board is a collective body and they are rarely involved in lower than policy level decision making. ED has to care about the effects of her decisions not only on practical level, but about their political implications inside of the movement: What would say editors of English Wikipedia? What would say Wikimedia Germany? What's going on on wikimedia-l? Signpost? Any independent Wikimedian who's position could affect many others? Ideally, WMF ED should have skills of one prime minister.
Besides that and unlike in the most of the organizations, WMF employees are not just regular employees, but their voice is also very important inside of our movement, as their contribution to the movement itself is extraordinary significant. WMF ED doesn't lead ordinary employees, with whom she can act in the traditional capitalist way.
WMF Board never searched for a person with "skills of one prime minister". Their decision is to have either a Bay Area "we are saving the world" NPO or Bay Area "Elon Musk is God" NPO. Bad side of the approach is that it will never cover all necessary things; good side of the approach is that Wikimedia movement is fairly decentralized and the rest of us could cover what's missing. And I think that it's easier to cover social than technological part, as technological part assumes highly structured workflow which volunteers can't implement.
On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 1:54 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I think we should have you use only UseModWiki for a few months and then you can come back and tell us whether we've actually made any improvements to our technology stack since 2001. :-)
In parts, our sites certainly look staid, dated, or even boring, but we have a number of cool new features, with more to come, of course. Briefly putting all of this recent drama and in-fighting aside, the most vital part of the Wikimedia Foundation's responsibilities, keeping the sites running fast, reliably, and securely, is being appropriately handled. The world continues to be able to read and contribute to our shared free content and for that I'm grateful. The rest is commentary, as they say.
I never said that WMF engineering team did bad job during the last 15 years. Besides that, I am completely aware that there were and are a lot of good ideas, some of them invisible for the end user, some of them never implemented because of lack of capacity of higher management and stubbornness of Wikipedia editors.
Thanks to Sue, we are far away from struggling with money for servers and operations. And your position -- we are fine as Wikimedia servers are up and running -- is serious and widespread issue among the Wikimedia veterans, which affects the whole movement. I remember the time when I was personally highly anxious because it wasn't that clear that WMF would have had money for the servers next year, too. I am relieved by the fact that that's a non-issue for at least five years, too.
But that reasoning -- we were struggling for food, we have the food now and that's the top achievement of our lives -- is something which have put us as a movement into the prolonged state of melancholy. Not that we are not attractive to new generations, we are not attractive even to ourselves.
You have to be hungry, remember vividly hungry times, be very imaginative or high on drugs to be excited when you open a refrigerator full of food. As I don't think any of us remember vividly the time before approximately 2010, as well as being very imaginative is not that common trait, we have to be high on drugs to be excited by the fact that WMF has enough money to pay bills for a lot of servers and people maintaining them.
We need to go further because we can. And that's not just an empty phrase. We already feel the effects of not going further. People tend to be demotivated and we depend on the motivation of volunteers.
The time of financial stabilization passed. Wikimedia movement is now financially stable. We should use that stability to move forward. And making visible and important technological advancements is something we need for a long time.
2016-01-09 0:40 GMT+01:00 James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com:
Our board made the decision to give Lila a second chance in the face of staff mistrust.
Now that's interesting. Where can I read more about this?
Th.
Il 09/01/2016 01:08, Thomas Goldammer ha scritto:
2016-01-09 0:40 GMT+01:00 James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com:
Our board made the decision to give Lila a second chance in the face of staff mistrust.
Now that's interesting. Where can I read more about this?
Th.
I wonder how did this kind of leak weigh in removal.
Anyway it's terribly interesting.
Apart from drama, allegations, mistrust, etc. I think no one can disagree the whole process is terribly broken. Before defying any "strategy", any "vision", any [put a cool word here] we should re-start from the basics of what the Board is supposed to be but, above all, *how* it is supposed to work.
What I read made me think James' removal was harsh but still fair. But if so many people are disappointed then there's something wrong with the process.
Shit happens, leaks happen, mistake happens. It seems current Foundation-side architecture lies upon the assertion no Board member, no higher staff will ever break bad. Also, it seems to forget our universe is run by volunteering. Till now we were so lucky (or at least most of troubles were internally sanitized).
I belong to the "pure online" class of volunteers and I don't feel so comfortable with a Board which seems to be turning into a Silicon Valley management board, denying our nature. Surely WMF financial dimensions need a professional management but this kind of skill (and stability) should come from a motivated staff instead of from a de facto co-opted Board.
Vito
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