[Foundation-l] Pointing out to an oddity

[Harel Cain]

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 10:59 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:


>  I'll ask you questions before the 22nd. I am travelling 6 days over 7 in
>  the "ask a question" week, so it is not super practical in terms of
>  communication :-(
>
>  Let me start by a small one... what is your feeling with regards to
>  transparency and confidentiality ?

Thanks for the question, Florence. Not sure we want to start a full
Q&A session at this stage and in this medium, but since you asked,
I'll happily answer.

My experience with the Wikimedia Israel chapter has taught me that a
careful mixture of transparency and confidentiality is what works
best. I'll explain: the board (or WMF staff, for that matter) have to
strive to work in a transparent, accountable manner. This means for
example that (final) resolutions made, formal announcements, meeting
agendas, budgets, bylaws and all other paperwork have to be published
in a prompt and organized manner. The real motives behind decisions
have to be clearly and truthfully explained. The board has to be very
responsive to inquiries and suggestions from outside and actively seek
them when needed. This kind of transparency is what the community and
the general public expect from an organization with values such as
ours. It's really a lot about learning how to communicate and explain
yourself to your "clientèle" so that they learn to trust in you.
On the other hand, for the board (and WMF staff) to function
efficiently there has to be a certain sphere for internal exchange of
opinion, criticism and brainstorming that does not necessarily have to
be very transparent. As an example, detailed word-by-word protocols of
board meetings do not have to be published, whereas agendas and
meeting minutes are.  In cooperating with other organizations for
example, a period of keeping the matter secret is sometimes necessary.
Some initiatives just float around and are then quickly found to be
bad or even damaging. So there has to be enough "internal room" for
this kind of experimenting to happen without full immediate
disclosure. Immature release of information can sometimes result in
failure, as things turn out to be less promising than initially
thought and the foundation can be cast in a bad light. For sure, legal
matters or ethical considerations sometimes warrant an amount of
confidentiality. Needless to say, the board has to make sure the
foundation abides by the law.

I hope this explains my basic views about the subject without going
into excessive detail.

Harel