Andreas, I think you are being unfair here. Whatever anyone's personal
opinion of Jimmy, the bottom line is that WMF staff have expressed that the
Board has not been listening to them. Jimmy is a board member. He's
directly saying "I'm coming to listen to you". And he's being
transparent
about it, by sharing his plan publicly on this list and perhaps
elsewhere. That pretty much sounds as though he's being responsive. Now,
none of us knows what the outcome will be, and I don't think it would be
appropriate for any of us to speculate on how various staff members will
choose to interact given this direct opportunity. Other board members live
in the immediate area and maybe they too will attend (and maybe not, we
don't know). This is a very short notice attendance, and since many board
members have responsibilities to their employers, families, and other
activities, they may not be able to drop everything and jump on a plane,
even if they want to.
Myself, I'd suggest that staff take advantage of this opportunity, with the
hope of having a more responsive interaction than the November meeting. It
is in *everyone's* interest that all of the groups within the Wikimedia
community start moving toward better integration, communication,
transparency, and carving out a shared vision. This is a step. It's only
a step.
As to this hypothetical Wikia connection, it's a speculation by Fae (and
only Fae, as far as I can see), who has not provided any evidence that his
statement is based on some known information. It may come as a surprise to
a lot of people, but Wikia's software has been increasingly diverging from
the MediaWiki we all use on Wikimedia projects, and they already have
better inter-wiki search than WMF projects have.
Risker/Anne
On 26 February 2016 at 10:02, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Brion,
I understand you and Jimmy Wales go way, way back. But what is the point of
"coming together" with someone who, just hours before the Knowledge Engine
grant agreement was released, insisted,
---o0o---
'To make this very clear: no one in top positions has proposed or is
proposing that WMF should get into the general "searching" or to try to
"be
google". It's an interesting hypothetical which has not been part of any
serious strategy proposal, nor even discussed at the board level, nor
proposed to the board by staff, nor a part of any grant, etc. It's a total
lie.'
---o0o---
When the grant agreement was released -- flatly contradicting his very
words, in the view of everyone who read it, including every single
journalist who wrote about it -- Jimmy Wales disappeared for four days from
the wiki. He eventually resurface and later made an appearance at the
Knowledge Engine FAQ on Meta explaining that he had only just learnt that
there really was a search engine project.[1]
How plausible is that? By all accounts, James and Dariusz fought to be
shown the documents that were later leaked, against the resistance of other
board members, which presumably included Jimmy Wales (I don't think it
takes too much intelligence to figure out that Guy Kawasaki and Jimmy Wales
were among Lila's main supporters and defenders on the board).
So are we to believe that Jimmy Wales had never seen the grant agreements,
had never seen those documents that all these arguments in the board were
about, had never even bothered to look at them?
In November 2015, board discussions referred to the Knowledge Engine
project as a "moon shot", according to James. So all this time Jimmy Wales
was ignorant of what this "moon shot" was, until some staff member informed
him on February 19 that there really were plans for a search engine?
"Nor even discussed at board level" my foot!
Even if you bend over backwards to assume Jimmy Wales is telling the truth,
and he really didn't know anything about this (he might have been struck by
temporary deafness during these "moon shot" discussions, after all, or
suffered a bout of amnesia), what does it say about him that he blithely
went round denouncing people who were telling the truth as liars spreading
"bullshit", rather than asking questions and informing himself before
shooting his mouth off?
What's the point of talking when you can't believe a word a person is
saying?
Andreas
P.S. Now, what is this about Wikia? This is news to me. How would Wikia
have profited from the Knowledge Engine? Did anyone plan to include Wikia
among the wikis the search engine would prominently surface?
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Knowledge_Engine/FAQ&diff=…
Andreas
On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 12:09 PM, Brion Vibber <bvibber(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Poo has indeed hit fans, as the metaphor goes.
But that's hardly the time
to STOP talking.
I'll be coming down to the SF office as well next week to talk
directly with Jimmy and with any staff (and board members!) who want to
plan or brainstorm or vent or just share a moment of "aggghhh!" and I'm
very much hoping for the best.
I think there's no expectation of magic resolutions, and Jimmy knows well
that there's been mistrust and there remain serious open issues. But this
is a rare inflection point, an opportunity to come together and seriously
explore how we got to this point and what we can all do to avoid a "next
time".
Whatever the outcomes I'm glad to see Jimmy reach out and look forward to
some "real talk" and a better understanding of how we all can make
positive
changes together.
-- brion
On Friday, February 26, 2016, Ruslan Takayev <ruslan.takayev(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Jimmy, et al
>
> As yet, we have yet to have coherent believable reasoning for the
removal
of James
Heilman from the BoT, but one of the reasons that has been put
out
> there (rightly or wrongly) is that James was talking to staff about the
> state of affairs at the WMF.
>
> Is this trip not the exact same thing that James was alleged to have
done
> all those months ago? i.e. talking to
staff.
>
> Why are trustees, including yourself, only now willing to listen to
staff
> concerns? The time for that was BEFORE the
proverbial poo hit the fan.
>
> I am seeing the announcement of your trip as nothing more than a
"knight
in
> shining armor" routine, that frankly is too little too late.
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Ruslan Takayev
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 4:06 AM, Jimmy Wales <jimmywales(a)ymail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>
> > Here is a note that I just sent to the staff mailing list (stuck in a
> > queue at the moment, so some staff will see it here first.).
> >
> > Hi everyone!
> >
> > I am coming to San Francisco on Saturday for a few days to meet with
a
> > lot of you. I know many of you are not
actually in San Francisco, so
> > I'll be sure to set aside time for remote meetings as well.
> >
> > By now you of course have heard that Lila is leaving us, and my hope
is
> > that we're going to enter a new era
of stability and productivity.
And
> > for that to happen, the board -
including me - needs to hear from
you,
> > to listen and learn.
> >
> > Brion Vibber, who I hired as the first ever employee of the
Foundation,
> > said this to me on Facebook recently:
"Jimmy Wales welcome back to
the
> > conversation. I look forward to how you
address the current crisis,
and
> > hope it will involve the kind of
careful listening and thoughtful
> > consideration that I remember from 2001."
> >
> > That's what I want, too. I want to listen and I want to help the
board
> make
good decisions.
>
> For me, the mission - a free encyclopedia for every single person on
the
> > planet, in their own language - is what brought us all together.
It's
> > what keeps us going even in difficult
times. But my view is that it
> > doesn't have to be difficult times. Working at the WMF should be -
and
> will
be, I really think - a joy: the joy of working with the best
> colleagues, the joy of doing work that matters to the world, and the
joy
> of working for the fantastic global
community of Wikipedians.
>
> I'll be reaching out to some of you - probably starting with people I
> already know - but please reach out to me as well if you'd like to
meet.
> >
> > I'm in SF from Saturday afternoon through Wednesday evening, so
> > depending on demand, I may not be able to see everyone, but I'd like
to
> > get a good overview.
> >
> > --Jimbo
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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