On Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 4:54 PM, Amir E. Aharoni <
amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Delphine, this was possibly the strongest email of the
last four months or
so of this mind-numbing nonsense.
The Board. I never really understood it. I did feel that it's supposed to
lead the editors and the staff in _some_ way, but, being both a staff
member and a volunteer editor, I never felt that it _actually_ does. Even
though quite a lot of the Board members are totally wonderful people,
wonderful Wikimedians and _my personal friends_, they never felt as
Wikimedia's leaders. And I'd think that they should be.
Leader worship of the kind that is common in USSR, DPRK, or the Linux
kernel, was NEVER my cup of tea, but _some_ (SOME!!!) kind of leadership
would be nice. It feels like a pregnant void at the moment.
Please, somebody, make it stop. Let's go back to improving the
encyclopedia, or something.
I hear you. I understand that the BoT may seem undecisive, slow, overly
inwards, etc. A lot of it is valid criticism. Some of it can be improved,
some is unlikely to change (as you can imagine, even coordinating frequent
meetings of people on different continents and having regular jobs,
spanning occasionally 12h of time difference, is a challenge).
I cannot tell you that I believe we're not making mistakes on the way, and
I cannot even admit that the pace of our work is satisfactory to me. I also
share a lot of frustration with our disconnect, no good transparency and
dialog practices, etc. But I can assure you that some of us are meeting to
address different urging issues several times a week, or sometimes even
daily (for instance, to catch up on the backlog of critical things from the
past, such as seeking an expert member for the Board, or to seek better
governance practices, as well as to discuss the contemporary emerging
issues).
It is important to do things in good timing, but it is even more important
to do things right (not just in decision-making - remember the VIsual
Editor?), not get easily swayed or lead by a crowd, think straight. When
I'm asking for patience, I'm basically trying to say that the Board is not
ignoring you - but I think that as a body it tries its best to focus and
use good, independent judgment, in the plenty of topics that emerge as
important. It is not up to me to offer deadlines, but we are not really
passive, as you seem to believe, either.
dj