It seems that the engagement between the Board and the Community has broken down, to the point that there may be a crisis of confidence developing. Perhaps members of this list would care to express their views at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Crisi...
Hoi, The most important thing about the board and the WMF is that they enable what we do. The dependence on them delivering services that are of a high quality is something they deliver. At the same time there is a coterie of "Wikipedians" that want to remake the WMF in their own image. They have proven not to be interested in our projects really. They have been challenged to consider practical things that will deliver much better quality for Wikipedia but it proved not to be what they are interested in.
Arguably there is a crisis. But the crisis has less to do with the WMF than with some in the community. They call themselves the community. IMHO they are malcontents; they have no agenda but single issues that will not help us achieve what the WMF is about. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 May 2016 at 23:36, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
It seems that the engagement between the Board and the Community has broken down, to the point that there may be a crisis of confidence developing. Perhaps members of this list would care to express their views at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Crisi... _______________________________________________ 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
Perhaps we could stick to facts?
In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee, and have not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they "missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail & Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement, including major changes at the board level.
It is an easy and lazy response to shout down objections by deriding everyone that has a complaint a malcontent or a troll. However after a few years of the WMF board failing to improve their self-governance or transparency, it's time to actually change things rather than accepting soft soap and political position statements that hold nobody to account.
Links 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Vote_of_no_confidence_o... 2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35411208 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quart...
Fae
On 2 May 2016 at 06:58, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, The most important thing about the board and the WMF is that they enable what we do. The dependence on them delivering services that are of a high quality is something they deliver. At the same time there is a coterie of "Wikipedians" that want to remake the WMF in their own image. They have proven not to be interested in our projects really. They have been challenged to consider practical things that will deliver much better quality for Wikipedia but it proved not to be what they are interested in.
Arguably there is a crisis. But the crisis has less to do with the WMF than with some in the community. They call themselves the community. IMHO they are malcontents; they have no agenda but single issues that will not help us achieve what the WMF is about. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 May 2016 at 23:36, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
It seems that the engagement between the Board and the Community has broken down, to the point that there may be a crisis of confidence developing. Perhaps members of this list would care to express their views at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Crisi... _______________________________________________ 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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02.05.2016 5:22 AM "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com napisał(a):
Perhaps we could stick to facts?
In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee,
You must have missed the announcement that he stepped down from the Board.
and have
not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
I posted three items that we're changing in the future recruitment process quite quickly. Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform the Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open conversation about these ideas soon (read: before Wikimania).
I'm sure that some people would like the WMF to be more like a Telekom. I don't think that corporate standards and procedures are the answer, and I really would like the WMF to be what it was meant to be: a mission-driven, knowledge organization in NGO/open-source environment, run by passionate employees in a strong, community- and staff- friendly culture, that delivers visionary results.
We're far from there yet, but following Telekom standards is not the answer. The WMF should improve by all means, and it also should be more accountable - but this is why this year it returns to the FDC process (which has been one of my priorities to increase communal control), and that should provide sensible community's feedback.
Dj
Hi Dariusz,
Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it." After many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to governance, nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works. Knowing the history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to "consensus".
No, I have not forgotten that Arnnon had to resign, thanks for pointing that out, and I recall how the WMF board unanimously supported him staying just the day before, even though it was absolutely obvious that he was not fit to be a trustee, and had he stayed the WMF board would have been a ghastly joke in terms of ethics for HR, at a time when the WMF's inability to do a professional job of HR in terms of the most basic staff morale was becoming a public fact.
Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
Thanks, Fae
On 2 May 2016 at 14:21, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
02.05.2016 5:22 AM "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com napisał(a):
Perhaps we could stick to facts?
In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee,
You must have missed the announcement that he stepped down from the Board.
and have
not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
I posted three items that we're changing in the future recruitment process quite quickly. Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform the Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open conversation about these ideas soon (read: before Wikimania).
I'm sure that some people would like the WMF to be more like a Telekom. I don't think that corporate standards and procedures are the answer, and I really would like the WMF to be what it was meant to be: a mission-driven, knowledge organization in NGO/open-source environment, run by passionate employees in a strong, community- and staff- friendly culture, that delivers visionary results.
We're far from there yet, but following Telekom standards is not the answer. The WMF should improve by all means, and it also should be more accountable - but this is why this year it returns to the FDC process (which has been one of my priorities to increase communal control), and that should provide sensible community's feedback.
Dj _______________________________________________ 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
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it."
I'm not sure if it is typical for the bodies such as Board to issue official apologies - but for my part, I definitely apologize for all shortcomings of the procedure I've been involved in, mistakes in oversight, etc.
After many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to governance,
Again, you seem not to have noticed that we nearly immediately amended the recruitment procedure in a way that will make repeating a mistake unlikely.
nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works.
How governance works? In fact, it would be nice to have this conversation as well, sure. The problem is that there are multiple demands from the community, and there are also external needs for the Board to address. We're out of bandwidth. Is the governance talk top priority now? Maybe. But I'm not convinced that it is more important than the ED search, or the expert seat fulfilment, or comments on strategy/plan, better enculturation and on-boarding of external Board members, and so on.
Knowing the history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to "consensus".
Well, not engaging with a person who clearly assumes extremely bad faith is a privilege I'm going to exercise. Feel free to keep on writing of course, just excuse me for not getting involved in replies to you in this thread for a while.
Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee
responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are
still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
You are correct - the BGC recommended Arnnon, and I personally had not found about the controversy when I was reviewing his files. I stated this on the list, admitted the mistake, as well as tried to understand and explain how it happened. I also proposed the changes to the future recruitment process, which have been introduced.
My understanding is that I'm still in this position, as the Board has assumed that this mistake was systematic, not personal. However, I am not tied to my seat, or to my presence on the Board. If the community recalls me, I will step down from either the BGC or the Board in general.
cheers,
dj
Dariusz*, *
Thank you for continuing to engage with the community.
Responding to highly critical voices in the movement is not fun.
Beside the highly critical voices on the mailing list, there are many people who read this list and appreciate communication from you. Warm regards, Sydney Poore User:FloNight
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:17 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it."
I'm not sure if it is typical for the bodies such as Board to issue official apologies - but for my part, I definitely apologize for all shortcomings of the procedure I've been involved in, mistakes in oversight, etc.
After many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to governance,
Again, you seem not to have noticed that we nearly immediately amended the recruitment procedure in a way that will make repeating a mistake unlikely.
nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works.
How governance works? In fact, it would be nice to have this conversation as well, sure. The problem is that there are multiple demands from the community, and there are also external needs for the Board to address. We're out of bandwidth. Is the governance talk top priority now? Maybe. But I'm not convinced that it is more important than the ED search, or the expert seat fulfilment, or comments on strategy/plan, better enculturation and on-boarding of external Board members, and so on.
Knowing the history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to "consensus".
Well, not engaging with a person who clearly assumes extremely bad faith is a privilege I'm going to exercise. Feel free to keep on writing of course, just excuse me for not getting involved in replies to you in this thread for a while.
Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee
responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are
still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
You are correct - the BGC recommended Arnnon, and I personally had not found about the controversy when I was reviewing his files. I stated this on the list, admitted the mistake, as well as tried to understand and explain how it happened. I also proposed the changes to the future recruitment process, which have been introduced.
My understanding is that I'm still in this position, as the Board has assumed that this mistake was systematic, not personal. However, I am not tied to my seat, or to my presence on the Board. If the community recalls me, I will step down from either the BGC or the Board in general.
cheers,
dj _______________________________________________ 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
On 2 May 2016 at 15:17, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote: ...
Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee
responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
You are correct - the BGC recommended Arnnon, and I personally had not found about the controversy when I was reviewing his files. I stated this on the list, admitted the mistake, as well as tried to understand and explain how it happened. I also proposed the changes to the future recruitment process, which have been introduced.
My understanding is that I'm still in this position, as the Board has assumed that this mistake was systematic, not personal. However, I am not tied to my seat, or to my presence on the Board. If the community recalls me, I will step down from either the BGC or the Board in general.
cheers,
dj
That's great. Please do the right thing and take the initiative to step down from the volunteer position of chair, so that someone with a history of excellent judgment on trustee governance can take the position. Ting Chen for example, the only trustee I can recall that walked away because he felt that trustees should not hold onto their seats indefinitely, a move that later resulted in trustee positions becoming time-limited.
As for your presumptions about my bad faith, the current set of trustees are super glued to their trustee seats, despite the publicly excruciating results of the Geshuri vote of confidence and the recent factual revelations about Jimmy Wales' bullying behaviour that would result in expulsion, were he a representative from most other organizations. The WMF board can not rely on an /automatic/ presumption of good faith in the context of this terrible history, until they earn back the respect that their trustee positions deserve from the Wikimedia Community; especially the WMF trustees that nobody but fellow trustees got to vote on and have never been held to account.
Thanks for your replies, even though you are dropping the mic on further discussion.[1]
P.S. On Sydney's comment, yes Dariusz is a volunteer. There are WMF paid employees that support the committee that I would expect to do most of the hard work of drafting versions and collating research. A chair must be able to delegate, have a basic vision, and ensure that the right skills are present on the committee to deliver the targets as part of that vision/conceptual strategy. As for a new plan, I have not suggested a super duper detailed plan with schedules and gantt charts, I'm asking for the most simple commitments and meaningful deadlines in the process to get there. It's not rocket science, this could easily have been done within a couple of weeks of Geshuri's departure when it was most urgent and would have demonstrated that the board is actually interested in listing to the community, acting on their ethical failures even when they refuse to admit them in public, and doing a bit more than deflecting their critics.
Links 1. http://news.sky.com/story/1687620/boom-queen-drops-the-mic-on-the-obamas
Fae
Hello Fae,
From my perspective, Dariusz is committed to improving the governance of
Board. But, he is in a volunteer position, and is limited in the percentage of his time that he can devote to WMF Board business.
Even if he personally was devoting 60 hours a week to reforming the Board, it would be impossible to have a new plan in place this soon.
Sydney
Sydney Poore User:FloNight Wikipedian in Residence at Cochrane Collaboration
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Dariusz,
Your email fits perfectly with my description of the WMF board: "have not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it." After many months there is no *commitment* to a date for any change to governance, nor is there any specific or measurable commitment to what the goal is for an "open conversation" or how that works. Knowing the history of the WMF board, there will no doubt be a pre-prepared policy or process and it will be implemented with barely any regard for community views which will be "canvassed" after the fact as a sop to "consensus".
No, I have not forgotten that Arnnon had to resign, thanks for pointing that out, and I recall how the WMF board unanimously supported him staying just the day before, even though it was absolutely obvious that he was not fit to be a trustee, and had he stayed the WMF board would have been a ghastly joke in terms of ethics for HR, at a time when the WMF's inability to do a professional job of HR in terms of the most basic staff morale was becoming a public fact.
Am I right that you were the chair of the governance committee responsible for recommending Arnnon to the board and that you are still in that position? Why are you still involved in the governance process if you were responsible for this huge mistake and the resulting PR disaster for the WMF and Arnnon?
Thanks, Fae
On 2 May 2016 at 14:21, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
02.05.2016 5:22 AM "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com napisał(a):
Perhaps we could stick to facts?
In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee,
You must have missed the announcement that he stepped down from the
Board.
and have
not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
I posted three items that we're changing in the future recruitment
process
quite quickly. Currently we have an ongoing discussion on how to reform
the
Board composition, and I hope we will be able to have an open
conversation
about these ideas soon (read: before Wikimania).
I'm sure that some people would like the WMF to be more like a Telekom. I don't think that corporate standards and procedures are the answer, and I really would like the WMF to be what it was meant to be: a
mission-driven,
knowledge organization in NGO/open-source environment, run by passionate employees in a strong, community- and staff- friendly culture, that delivers visionary results.
We're far from there yet, but following Telekom standards is not the answer. The WMF should improve by all means, and it also should be more accountable - but this is why this year it returns to the FDC process (which has been one of my priorities to increase communal control), and that should provide sensible community's feedback.
Dj _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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Hoi, Really.
We have had a rough patch where management and people in the WMF were at odds. We have a rough patch where people for all kinds of reason decide to no longer be a member of the WMF board. It is no wonder that things are not as they should be as a consequence. When you add the negativity out of much of the community re the work of the WMF. No is the default answer, negativity the standard attitude. I think the WMF given such circumstances does really well.
When you want to stick to the facts, it is also how you present them. When 314 people vote, I find this almost an insignificant number given the size of our community.
So from your position the glass is half empty, I see it is half full. I think it can only get better and that is not how I experience your position. In the mean time I do not see how the "community" helps in this. For the community the board is very much peripheral to the objective and imho too much is made of the board. As to Mr Geshuri he is not the only person who is no longer on the board.
This whole notion of "understanding to the next decimal point" of what happened makes us a reactive organisation and to put it bluntly that is not what we need. We need an organisation that is proactive and that will only happen when there is some trust. This whole drive to get more "transparency" will only dig us a bigger hole.
So do consider what it is that we are to achieve and what your role is. My role is simple, I want us to embrace approaches and technology that will particularly support the other languages. I want us to do a much better job at understanding what our readers are looking for and it may be well intentioned but the current approach will not improve things and will only constrain our ability to achieve our expressed goals. Thanks, GerardM
On 2 May 2016 at 11:21, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps we could stick to facts?
In the very recent case of Arnnon Geshuri, the WMF board of trustees proved themselves to be completely out of touch with the community.[1][2] 314 Wikimedians took part in the vote of no confidence, hardly just "malcontents", and 95% of those that took part voted directly against the stated position of the board, who still remain happy with their decision to keep Geshuri as trustee, and have not apologized or even changed a single part of their governance processes, despite vague unmeasurable offers to look into it.
With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they "missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail & Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement, including major changes at the board level.
It is an easy and lazy response to shout down objections by deriding everyone that has a complaint a malcontent or a troll. However after a few years of the WMF board failing to improve their self-governance or transparency, it's time to actually change things rather than accepting soft soap and political position statements that hold nobody to account.
Links
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Vote_of_no_confidence_o... 2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35411208 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quart...
Fae
On 2 May 2016 at 06:58, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, The most important thing about the board and the WMF is that they enable what we do. The dependence on them delivering services that are of a high quality is something they deliver. At the same time there is a coterie of "Wikipedians" that want to remake the WMF in their own image. They have proven not to be interested in our projects really. They have been challenged to consider practical things that will deliver much better quality for Wikipedia but it proved not to be what they are interested
in.
Arguably there is a crisis. But the crisis has less to do with the WMF
than
with some in the community. They call themselves the community. IMHO they are malcontents; they have no agenda but single issues that will not help us achieve what the WMF is about. Thanks, GerardM
On 1 May 2016 at 23:36, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
It seems that the engagement between the Board and the Community has
broken
down, to the point that there may be a crisis of confidence developing. Perhaps members of this list would care to express their views at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Crisi...
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On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 2:21 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high
quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they "missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail & Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement, including major changes at the board level. [...] 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quart...
The explanation for this, is at the top of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterl... : "NB: In a mature 90-day goalsetting process, the “sweet spot” is for about 75% of goals to be a success. Organizations that are meeting 100% of their goals are not typically setting aggressive goals." Note that partial successes are not also represented, if one just checks the overview result; it's a simple binary system. See the textual notes for details about partial successes within individual goals. Plus, not reaching that 75% target of completely-successful goals, is perhaps also attributable to the intense and widespread stress of that time period... Hope that helps.
Fae, I can see no reason for Dariusz to leave the board. He seems to be decent and intelligent. The Arnnon thing was an error but it was clearly part of a broader problem. Yes, they all need training but that seems to be in the works. I hope he stays, and is re-elected if he chooses to run next time.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 7:09 AM, Nick Wilson (Quiddity) < nwilson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 2:21 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high
quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they "missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail & Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement, including major changes at the board level. [...] 3.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quart...
The explanation for this, is at the top of
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterl... : "NB: In a mature 90-day goalsetting process, the “sweet spot” is for about 75% of goals to be a success. Organizations that are meeting 100% of their goals are not typically setting aggressive goals." Note that partial successes are not also represented, if one just checks the overview result; it's a simple binary system. See the textual notes for details about partial successes within individual goals. Plus, not reaching that 75% target of completely-successful goals, is perhaps also attributable to the intense and widespread stress of that time period... Hope that helps. _______________________________________________ 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
That Dariusz is willing to engage with the community is very positive. The issues that occurred around the selecting of Arnnon are complicated and I agree with Dariusz were more systemic in nature. I do not see the movement as being well served by him stepping down.
James
On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 6:23 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Fae, I can see no reason for Dariusz to leave the board. He seems to be decent and intelligent. The Arnnon thing was an error but it was clearly part of a broader problem. Yes, they all need training but that seems to be in the works. I hope he stays, and is re-elected if he chooses to run next time.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 7:09 AM, Nick Wilson (Quiddity) < nwilson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 2:21 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high
quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they "missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail & Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement, including major changes at the board level. [...] 3.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quart...
The explanation for this, is at the top of
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterl...
: "NB: In a mature 90-day goalsetting process, the “sweet spot” is for about 75% of goals to be a success. Organizations that are meeting 100%
of
their goals are not typically setting aggressive goals." Note that partial successes are not also represented, if one just checks the overview result; it's a simple binary system. See the textual notes
for
details about partial successes within individual goals. Plus, not reaching that 75% target of completely-successful goals, is perhaps also attributable to the intense and widespread stress of that
time
period... Hope that helps. _______________________________________________ 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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He isn't asking Dariusz to leave the board, but the position of chair of a particular committee on it. While I have no idea if this is called for either, it seems an important distinction.
-I
On 03/05/16 04:23, Anthony Cole wrote:
Fae, I can see no reason for Dariusz to leave the board. He seems to be decent and intelligent. The Arnnon thing was an error but it was clearly part of a broader problem. Yes, they all need training but that seems to be in the works. I hope he stays, and is re-elected if he chooses to run next time.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 7:09 AM, Nick Wilson (Quiddity) < nwilson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 2:21 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
With regard to "[the WMF board] delivering services that are of a high
quality", all the metrics that the WMF report show the opposite. The WMF consistently fail to meet the performance targets they set for themselves, as you can see from the most recent quarterly report, they "missed", i.e. "failed", 35% of all their objectives.[3] In the Retail & Telecoms businesses I have worked in, a pattern of poor performance like this would see speedy major investment in change and improvement, including major changes at the board level. [...] 3.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quart...
The explanation for this, is at the top of
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterl... : "NB: In a mature 90-day goalsetting process, the “sweet spot” is for about 75% of goals to be a success. Organizations that are meeting 100% of their goals are not typically setting aggressive goals." Note that partial successes are not also represented, if one just checks the overview result; it's a simple binary system. See the textual notes for details about partial successes within individual goals. Plus, not reaching that 75% target of completely-successful goals, is perhaps also attributable to the intense and widespread stress of that time period... Hope that helps. _______________________________________________ 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
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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