Having waited two days for any kind of meaningful response from either the Board or from individual trustees, I have to say that Kat's comments (unsurprisingly) nailed it.
I mean, seriously, nobody googled him?
Austin
On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 9:48 PM, Kat Walsh kat@mindspillage.org wrote:
I wish the best for the new board, and for the movement. But I am troubled to learn of this.
I have always welcomed the appointed seats on the board--in my experience they brought useful perspectives and experience with their view from the outside, and I don't expect them all to begin their tenure as perfect representatives of the priorities and ideals of the Wikimedia movement as the community-selected members are.
But as they are full voting members, participating in all decisions, we have always expected them to share key values, and probably the most important of those is integrity. It's always hard to judge beforehand; what you really really want to know is how someone would act in a situation they haven't yet been faced with. But if the news reports are true (or even just mostly true) about Arnnon Geshuri's role in the staffing scandal, then this is a disappointing choice by the WMF board. (Of course, someone who refused to go along with it probably would not have been visible to the selection committee--uncompromising ethical standards make it much harder to get and keep a position of responsibility and expertise in most organizations; the exceptions exist but less commonly than I'd wish, and I hope we're among them. But this is probably a systematic failure in recruiting for us.)
The reason this bothers me so much--enough to break my list silence--is that I think integrity is the most important and most difficult thing for a board member of this organization. One of the key things that distinguishes Wikimedia from other entities is that it does not take the easy path: it does not sell the privacy of users, it does not make restricted content deals, it does not believe influence over content or governance should be able to be bought. If these decisions were easy and came without tradeoffs or pressures everyone would make them, but they don't; we see all over that Wikimedia is an outlier, not the norm, while others make decisions that look good in the short term but are damaging in the long term. Organizations with tremendous reach and influence--such as Google and Wikipedia--have a great responsibility not to take actions that systematically harm the people that rely on them. To know that someone at such an organization participated in something unethical in this way does not give me great confidence in them for leadership in Wikimedia.
I don't envy the current board the problems they are faced with, and recognize the difficulty in recruiting for it given the level of commitment involved--and I don't doubt that the new appointee has much to recommend him. But despite the wealth of experience he would bring, if the situation is as it seems to be, I cannot be supportive of this choice.
-Kat
On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 12:16 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Upon hearing of Arnnon's history at Google, I confess to being surprised to the point of a long silence.
If these news reports are true, this is disturbing to say the least. Whether he was happy about it or not, it appears that he chose to participate in illegal activity in a prominent role as a "Senior Staffing Strategist", and described a Google employee's noncompliance with the illegal scheme as "an error in judgment". I cannot think of an excuse from an HR professional that I would accept for this.
Dariusz, you said in your statement that was published in the Wikimedia Blog that WMF "considered dozens of candidates from all over the world, with not-for-profit and technology experience, and the highest professional standards.” I would be interested to hear how you reconcile "highest professional standards" with the prior actions of Arnnon,
Lila, you said that "Kelly and Arnnon bring a special combination of expertise, integrity, and love for our mission." I am interested in hearing how you reconcile this assessment with the reports about Arnnon's role in this illegal scheme at Google.
Looking at the WMF situation more broadly in light of the Board's removal of James and its surrounding circumstances, I am very disappointed with what we are learning and I am losing confidence in the governance of WMF. I am considering strategic options for the community.
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