[Foundation-l] Priorities

[Marc Riddell]

on 10/21/07 5:31 AM, Florence Devouard at anthere at anthere.org wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> A year ago, the board chose me to be the chair of the Wikimedia
> Foundation. Soon after, I sent an email
> (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-October/024619.html),
> where I tried to outline what I intended to focus on as a chair. This
> year, the board agreed to reappoint me as their chair for the coming
> year, I would like to thank them for the opportunity. The past months
> were hard time, I hope we'll get more peace in the coming months.
> 
> Looking back, what I considered being last year priorities are largely
> fixed now, or on the way of being fixed. New priorities are however
> showing up :-)
> 
> Staff: With Sue's arrival and several people hired during the year, the
> situation is currently largely under control and in a much more
> satisfactory situation than it was last year (thank god !).
> The next steps are the relocation (timeline: next three months) and
> hiring more staff (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings).
> Some of the challenges of the coming year will be to make sure the
> professionalization of the WMF does not mean the editors are less
> involved. This will in particular require to welcome and gently, warmly,
> educate our future staff members, so that they understand what our
> projects are about. For example, this year, we were very lucky with
> Sandy, who successfully worked with volunteers on communication issues
> and relentlessly learned about what we care about. It will probably also
> mean working on our values.
> 
> Another priority will be to build up a review procedure, to evaluate
> Sue's performance, based on job description, including relationships
> with the board, staff and community; project planning and
> implementation; and of course management of the organization and staff.
> Procedures to review of head of staff performance are important for the
> long-term sustainability of any organization.
> 
> 
> 
> Board: I am pretty satisfied of the work accomplished this year :-)
> The board partly changed with the arrival of new members (Kat and Oscar
> in november; Jan-Bart in december; Frieda in june). The board was
> expanded from 5 to 7 board members. We clarified the mission of our
> organization. We adopted new bylaws. We completed the first 3 years
> annual audit. We are now having regular, well organized meetings, proper
> reporting systems. We hired Sue. We approved a budget, several policies
> and guidelines. Etc...
> 
> However, we are lacking a treasurer, and our financial control over the
> organization was insufficient during the past year. We improved the
> situation in the past few months, but now need to push forward the
> issue. So, finding a new treasurer, formulating/approving financial
> policies and generally improving financial controls will be one of the
> top priorities on my agenda (timeline: next 3-6 months);
> 
> I'd like as well to work more with the board to assess board performance.
> 
> 
> 
> Advisory board: In the past year, we populated the advisory board, held
> a advisory board meeting in Taipei, and got several of these members
> involved in various issues (ED search, fundraising, Wikimania 2008,
> relocation, hiring etc...). Overall, I am rather satisfied of our job
> with the advboard in the past year. Naturally, we can do much much
> better, and I hope we'll do more in the coming year, but to be fair, we
> have a lot on the table and I do not have a specific agenda for now on
> this point.
> 
> 
> Chapters: tough point. During the year, we approved guidelines for
> chapter creation and recognition, as well as for limited use of our
> brands. The past year was however the object of many frustrations, with
> many delays for agreements to be approved. Still, there is a lot to
> define in terms of relationships between WMF and wikimedia chapters, and
> I intend to make that a priority of the coming months.
> 
> 
> Of course, there is a lot more to do, such as to work to develop and
> start implementing a long-term plan. I expect this will happen little by
> little, as the organization builds up. But I nevertheless wanted to
> point out to a few of my priorities.
> 
> 
> 
> Last point.
> A few days ago, I gave a talk at the Elearning conference of Lisbon.
> After my talk, someone came to me and told me I just got it all wrong,
> and the only thing I should have explained to the audience was that
> Wikipedia was the tool which would bring peace on Earth.
> 
> Indeed, that point was discussed the previous day at dinner, and it was
> argued that beyond knowledge, Wikipedia was a fabulous tool to get
> people to realize that we are all different, but that differences are
> precious.   A tool helping all of us to learn basic skills such as
> listening to others, tolerance, consensus-seeking, negotiation,
> mediation, and even conflict resolution. We also learn that we might
> scream at each other one day, but still work together the next day
> because we believe in the same goal.
> 
> At the same time, I felt I could not say publicly that Wikipedia was one
> of the tools to bring peace on Earth because I also know working on our
> projects (not only Wikipedia) is somehow becoming increasingly
> difficult. We are more numerous, more protective to our
> featured-content, less welcoming to our newbies (for technical or social
> reasons).
> How many experts have been driven away by the agressivity of some of our
> members ? How many new editors just were discouraged by the difficulty
> of editing a table or a template ? How many newbies were blocked because
> they just did not understood quickly enough how to use a talk page ?
> Also, during the year, several cases of online or offline harassment of
> contributors were reported. Harassement which came as a result of their
> contributions to our projects.
> 
> For all what is worth, I would like to offer my moral support to
> newbies, contributors and administrators who experienced harassment, or
> simply lack of respect for the work they provided, or poor welcoming
> experiences. And I would like to urge all contributors and
> administrators individually, and projects generally, to condemn or at
> least not facilitate harassment, to adopt a warm and friendly attitude
> toward other participants, to think of and implement social and
> technical changes which would give users a more pleasant experience.
> And when anger flares (which happens to nearly all of us), to remember
> that apologies can do wonders.
> 
> We all want the same in the end.
> 
> 
Thank you, Florence - for all of it.

Marc Riddell