[Foundation-l] Where we are headed

[Jimmy Wales]

Troy Hunter wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> Erik Zachte wrote:
>> 
>>> * Increasingly decison are taken by the board without too much 
>>> prior discussion in the open, at least on places where I would 
>>> expect it, like on this mailing list.
>> 
>> I don't think so.  I don't know of any examples.  But if there are 
>> some things that you would like to bring up as specifics, I would 
>> love to consider them.
> 
> What about the committee resolutions, such as the following?
> 
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_committee_conduct 
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Special_projects 
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Communications_committee
> 
> 
Can you be more specific with your question?  I am not sure I
understand.  The first resolution was something that we discussed at the
board level but never quite came to a firm conclusion.  I think that's
one which we will revisit at some point in the future.  The general idea
was to make sure that committees not engage in excessive secrecy, which
is a good idea, but at the same time, we did not want to encumber them
with a lot of paranoia that they have to announce evertything all the
time.  Different board members had different perspectives on how to get
those central points across.

The other two are creations of committees of volunteers.  In some cases,
the committees were simply formal recognition of what was already going
on in the community, in other cases, these were delegations in a formal
legal sense of what the board had previously done.

>> In particular, the "increasingly" perception is the one I want to 
>> combat, by trying to make it more clear how things are done, and 
>> how things have transitioned and continue to transition to having a
>>  lot more people involved.
> 
> I've heard that these days, most things are discussed and decided on 
> a secret mailing list long before they become public. Is that true?

If it is true, I guess things are decided without me, since I am not on
any secret mailing lists.  There are some mailing lists which are not
open to the general public, but I do not know of any serious objections
to that: a lot of issues need to be handled with some discretion.
Please remember that on more than one occassion, something said on a
public mailing list at Wikimedia has made international headlines.

> You mean "community-oriented" as in oriented towards those people 
> selected by Delphine and Danny to be on the committees? Sounds more 
> like cabal-oriented to me.

It sounds like you have a very specific complaint, so why don't
we talk about that instead of talking generalities?  Neither Delphine
nor Danny are authorized to veto membership on any committee.  Of the
two committees that you mentioned by link, neither Delphine nor Danny is
on the committee.

So, no, I do not mean any such thing.  I mean community-oriented in the
sense that the committees are made up of community members, and are
self-organized rather than being micro-managed by the board.  If you
have a beef with some specific decision made by a commitee, please bring
it forward.

--Jimbo