Well, Jimmy Wales has said here in this discussion that he is "continuing
to push for more disclosure and more openness."
Maybe he'll be so kind as to tell you now that you can publish that NDA
here on this list without fear of repercussions. I think we all agree that
kind of fear should have no place in the WMF.
Andreas
On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 1:22 PM, Oliver Keyes <ironholds(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Anthony has hit the nail on the head here with
"could be used to
punish or intimidate staff"; the reason I, at least, am uncomfortable
talking about the internal details here (beyond the obvious PR
elements for the Foundation) is that there's a lot of ongoing fear
about repercussions. A couple of years ago this wouldn't have been the
case.
(This also indirectly answers the "can we see your NDA?" question. I
don't know. And hell, I'm this scared having *already quit*.)
More guidance, and public guidance at that, would be deeply
appreciated. Within the Discovery Analytics team we've gone out of our
way to write up pretty all-encompassing guidelines specifically for
data (which I look forward to being able to publish pretty soon - we
just got clearance to do so). It would be nice to have more firm
guidance on what we should do with transparency around other kinds of
information. It would, of course, be even nicer if we could rebuild
trust, since that's the source of a lot of the fear.
On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 6:40 AM, Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It's not just NDAs that constrain you, staff.
The WMF code of conduct
<https://m.wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Code_of_conduct_policy> (that
applies to staff and trustees) reads,
"People acting on the Foundation’s behalf must respect and maintain the
confidentiality of sensitive information they have gained due to their
association with the Foundation. This may include personal information
about community members or members of the general public, and/or
information about the internal workings of the Foundation or its partners
or suppliers."
"Information about the internal workings of the Foundation" is extremely
broad and vague, and could be used to punish or intimidate staff who talk
openly about anything. Perhaps you could add "some" ("some information
about the internal workings of the Foundation") and leave it to the
individual NDAs to specify what "some" means. Or perhaps you could just
be
specific in the code of conduct.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 6:51 PM, James Alexander <
jalexander(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Something that I would like to understand is why so much WMF
information
> is
> > cloaked under NDAs. It seems to me that this is philosophically at
odds
> > with the values of the community, makes
for poor governance, and
provides
> > cover for opportunities for mischief. I
hope that recent events will
> prompt
> > WMF to rethink its habits and assumptions in the realms of
transparency,
> > openness, and values alignment.
> >
> > Pine
> >
>
> While on a base level I agree with you I feel its important to add some
> caveats to that. I think a good portion of this is actually everyone
> needing a better understanding about what 'is' expected to be private
(and
> preferably why) from Management on down. I
think a lot of what people
are
> calling "under the NDA" may not be
:).
>
> I also think it's important to consider the categories of private
> data/information too, however, because i fear we (both the staff and the
> community) use "under NDA" as a very broad and note always accurate
> description. The way I see it there is:
>
>
> 1. Private WMF Data or information that is most definetly covered by
the
> NDA: examples include most donor data,
attorney-client privileged
> information, information that is legally protected, information we
> protect
> via official public policy etc.
> 2. Information and notes that really don't need to be private: This
is
> the stuff we're talking about
releasing.
> 3. Inter personal/team discussions and similar.
>
> [sorry, this turned out tldr, apologies. TLDR: Careful demanding
sharing of
> internal team discussions]
>
> 3. I actually think is really important because it is not what we think
of
> when we think of private information (and,
honestly, probably isn't
under
> the NDA usually) but can be very important to
be kept privately even if
the
> end result of the discussion should be made
public etc.. This is
especially
> true to allow open conversations between
staff members. Not only do they
> need to feel comfortable bringing up crazy idea A (which some are now
and
> could probably be done more with culture
change, possible on both the
> community and WMF sides) but they need to feel comfortable saying that
> crazy idea A is crazy and bad for reasons X,Y and Z.
>
> Lodewijk made my main point well in the thread about Lawrence Lessig:
> People get very uncomfortable talking about others in public. If Staff
> member B is breaking apart Staff member A's proposal there is a good
chance
> at least one of them is going to be feeling
very uncomfortable about it.
> That discomfort often gets much bigger the more people who see what's
> happening either because they feel more shame (to pick just one of the
> emotions you can feel in that type of situation) or because they feel
like
> they're doing more shaming then they want
to do. That expanded
discomfort
> can make them significantly less likely to do
any number of things we
don't
> want: get more defensive/less willing to
change, be less wiling to
propose
> those bold ideas that could be really great
(or not), be less willing to
> speak out against the bad ideas etc.
>
> The other reason is another one that I imagine we're all familiar with
on
> wiki: The more people who pile on in one
direction (even if it's only
2-3
> frequently) (and in my experience the more
public that discussion) the
less
> likely people are going to be to oppose what
the direction those initial
> commentators/voters/blah went. Suddenly people feel like they need to
> defend their opinion much more then they would otherwise or that they
could
> be faced with angry opposition. These
concerns are certainly possible on
> internal teams and mailing lists (the WMF Staff list is somewhat famous
for
> people being afraid to pile on after a lot of
people went the other way
and
> I know some, including me, are trying to
change that) but they become
more
> and more of a concern the wider that audience
becomes and publishing
those
> discussions is a VERY wide audience.
>
> I think that publishing the Discovery Team meeting with lila recently
was a
> right and proper move but I also think it was
likely an exception to the
> rule. Seeing people disagree so strongly and publicly with one of their
> regular colleagues could very well scare away those colleagues and we
don't
want
that.
James Alexander
Manager
Trust & Safety
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
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