The following is the text of a letter I just sent to the Board of Trustees. --------------------------
A tale from the trenches
I wake up every day short on sleep, check staff mail, check wikimedia-l, check the facebook discussion group, check signpost comments, check irc, check officewiki recent changes, check wikimediafoundation recent changes...
I gear myself up to learn who may have left today, what they will have said, to digest the outpouring of support and sadness from others, and the deafening silence from those who are in a position to put an end to all of this.
I go over the reasons again in my mind that we're in this crisis: bad hirings, decisions in secret, dissembling and coverups about the processes that led to those decisions; refusal or inability to state a clear vision, let alone get buy-in or the involvement of staff/community in shaping that vision; restructuring the organization following these same broken processes. And so much more.
Make no mistake, this is not just about an ED. It's also about failure of oversight, powerlessness of staff, and a culture of exclusion, among other things. If, as I hope, the Board acts decisively to remove the current ED, that will only be the first step in a mountain of work ahead of us. Hard, painful, exhausting work. But we can't begin to get started on it until that first step is taken.
In November at The Meeting (you all know which one I mean), Jimmy Wales called on all of us to give Lila Tretikov a second chance, a chance to rebuild the trust that had been lost. We're well beyond that point now. That trust is irrevocably broken. It's possible that she would be able to play a part in the healing and regrouping that must happen within the WMF going forwards, but only as a private individual. I would have to have some distance from things in order to figure that out, and none of us has that right now. What I do know is that the current situation is toxic, and getting increasingly more so.
We're bleeding out. Slowly at first, but it's a just matter of time--and probably not much of it--before that trickle turns into a flood. I plead with the one organization that has the ability to stop it, to step in and do so.
SOS...
Sincerely,
Ariel Glenn tech gnome, WMF staff
On Thursday, 25 February 2016, Ariel Glenn WMF ariel@wikimedia.org wrote: <snip>
Make no mistake, this is not just about an ED. It's also about failure of oversight, powerlessness of staff, and a culture of exclusion, among other things. If, as I hope, the Board acts decisively to remove the current ED, that will only be the first step in a mountain of work ahead of us. Hard, painful, exhausting work. But we can't begin to get started on it until that first step is taken.
I'd like to highlight this point in particular. It also echoes Oliver Keyes statement yesterday.
When the Board makes its next official statement detailing its response to the current situation, I sincerely hope that it does not only address the ED. That is a necessary statement, but would not be a sufficient one.
I hope that the statement will ALSO include some degree of detail about HOW the board will also address the problems of governance and oversight that has led to the current situation. In the past, the WMF has required Wikimedia-UK to undertake a formal governance review, and that might be an appropriate precedent to apply here.
I'm NOT calling for specific governance changes need to be implemented immediately. That would be a mob-mentality, and any immediately-implemented changes would be reactionary. Nevertheless, a statement to the effect of "we're thinking about it, trust us" would not be sufficiently believable at this point in time when trust is so low. So instead, I really hope the board can make some specific (and therefore accountable!) assurances about how it will be investigating changes to governance over the next few months.
- Liam / Wittylama
Hoi, It is not only staff that suffer. It is really depressing what goes on. I find that I do less than I used to do. It is the little things that keep me going.. I blogged about it ..
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/02/wikidata-little-things.html
Be good, be gentle Gerard
On 25 February 2016 at 14:04, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, 25 February 2016, Ariel Glenn WMF ariel@wikimedia.org wrote:
<snip>
Make no mistake, this is not just about an ED. It's also about failure
of
oversight, powerlessness of staff, and a culture of exclusion, among
other
things. If, as I hope, the Board acts decisively to remove the current
ED,
that will only be the first step in a mountain of work ahead of us.
Hard,
painful, exhausting work. But we can't begin to get started on it until that first step is taken.
I'd like to highlight this point in particular. It also echoes Oliver Keyes statement yesterday.
When the Board makes its next official statement detailing its response to the current situation, I sincerely hope that it does not only address the ED. That is a necessary statement, but would not be a sufficient one.
I hope that the statement will ALSO include some degree of detail about HOW the board will also address the problems of governance and oversight that has led to the current situation. In the past, the WMF has required Wikimedia-UK to undertake a formal governance review, and that might be an appropriate precedent to apply here.
I'm NOT calling for specific governance changes need to be implemented immediately. That would be a mob-mentality, and any immediately-implemented changes would be reactionary. Nevertheless, a statement to the effect of "we're thinking about it, trust us" would not be sufficiently believable at this point in time when trust is so low. So instead, I really hope the board can make some specific (and therefore accountable!) assurances about how it will be investigating changes to governance over the next few months.
- Liam / Wittylama
-- wittylama.com Peace, love & metadata _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Thanks for sharing with the mailinglist.
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 13:44:20 +0200 From: ariel@wikimedia.org To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Message just sent to the BoT
The following is the text of a letter I just sent to the Board of Trustees.
A tale from the trenches
I wake up every day short on sleep, check staff mail, check wikimedia-l, check the facebook discussion group, check signpost comments, check irc, check officewiki recent changes, check wikimediafoundation recent changes...
I gear myself up to learn who may have left today, what they will have said, to digest the outpouring of support and sadness from others, and the deafening silence from those who are in a position to put an end to all of this.
I go over the reasons again in my mind that we're in this crisis: bad hirings, decisions in secret, dissembling and coverups about the processes that led to those decisions; refusal or inability to state a clear vision, let alone get buy-in or the involvement of staff/community in shaping that vision; restructuring the organization following these same broken processes. And so much more.
Make no mistake, this is not just about an ED. It's also about failure of oversight, powerlessness of staff, and a culture of exclusion, among other things. If, as I hope, the Board acts decisively to remove the current ED, that will only be the first step in a mountain of work ahead of us. Hard, painful, exhausting work. But we can't begin to get started on it until that first step is taken.
In November at The Meeting (you all know which one I mean), Jimmy Wales called on all of us to give Lila Tretikov a second chance, a chance to rebuild the trust that had been lost. We're well beyond that point now. That trust is irrevocably broken. It's possible that she would be able to play a part in the healing and regrouping that must happen within the WMF going forwards, but only as a private individual. I would have to have some distance from things in order to figure that out, and none of us has that right now. What I do know is that the current situation is toxic, and getting increasingly more so.
We're bleeding out. Slowly at first, but it's a just matter of time--and probably not much of it--before that trickle turns into a flood. I plead with the one organization that has the ability to stop it, to step in and do so.
SOS...
Sincerely,
Ariel Glenn tech gnome, WMF staff _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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