Milos, is your email a wind-up?
I find this idea that everything will be okay if we shut up and let Jimmy select his mates as our future trustees not just a scenario that should stay in Bizarro World, but the opposite of good governance.
If this is how the WMF actually works, then yes, the WMF really, *really*, needs a governance review and changes to ensure trustees are appointed who do not have a history of being found in court to be acting illegally and get in just because they are exceedingly wealthy, a good chap according Jimmy, or have just been hanging out at the right parties for rich Californians.
Imagine a world where the sum of human knowledge was governed by an open and transparent trusted meritocracy. Wouldn't that be super?
Fae
On 11 January 2016 at 02:18, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 1:37 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
I can, however, generally add that we have not collected any nominations from our donors, if this helps.
I can confirm this, as I am sure nothing has changed since NomCom existence in relation to this issue, except updating the list with the new names and maybe removing some of those proved to be controversial (optionally, they are removing controversial ones every time the process starts).
NomCom failed mostly because of that list. However, Sue's idea to use HR agency turned out to be the best solution, as we got Bishakha. (Note for the future: use HR agency; they do the job better than you; they are professionals.)
Although I never had particular information, it's obvious that the list is mostly consisted of Jimmy's network. That's not necessary bad per se. Jimmy has the best connections inside of the Board and while some of the names if selected would trigger demonstration in front of the WMF office, it is possible to find good names inside of that list. However, again, HR agency would do much better job, as they are not dilettantes.
There is one more thing in favor of Jimmy. Inside of the relations and structure as it's now, Wikimedia movement should thank him for keeping the integrity of WMF inside of the sea full of barracudas, sharks and orcas. There were and are numerous worse scenarios than we have now and people don't tend to think about them. That's independent of how vocal he is here or anywhere else.
I want to say it's not about CoI, as mentioned here numerous times. Jimmy and the other Board members from the community (not elected by, but from the community; Alice is from the community, too) are not corrupted for sure and they are majority. It's normal to suggest the best possible options for your organization if you are able to do that. Arnnon Geshuri would be strong reinforcement to the Board if there is no that serious investigation against him.
Board members are not corrupted, but the system is. We see now how serious mistakes could pass because of that.
That small number of people heavily depend on virtues of every particular Board member. One of that is long-term institutional memory, which, with the exception of Jimmy, we likely don't have for a year or more. I know Stu wanted to leave Board years ago. I also know Jan-Bart wanted to leave Board at the end of 2014. It's questionable to me how strong they were involved into the selection process (also, Stu's Yahoo background could be inhibiting to him to say anything against candidates of Google background). This situation could have been avoided if we had pedantic Wikipedian with OCD inside of the Board, but it turns out that we don't have one.
I could imagine the process of selecting the candidates:
Committee:
- Ideal Board member has to be a woman from a developing country.
- Oh, but see this guy! I never heard about him, but he's working for
Tesla and he was working for Google! Wow!
- OK, the second one then has to be for sure a woman and from a
developing country.
- We have a woman!
- From developing country?
- No.
- OK, it's fair enough. We did the job. Jan-Bart and Stu are pretty
angry as they had to be inside of the Board for one more year.
- True. We don't have time anymore. Done.
Board:
- Dariusz: We have two candidates!
- Stu: Wow, such great candidates! -- while thinking "OMG, Arnnon! He
approached our HR to make some business with us, but our HR was too drunk to talk with him. Whatever, they promised me I am leaving at the end of December, so it's not my job anymore."
- Jan-Bart: Great, may I leave now? Patricio is chair, you don't need
me anymore! Hohoho! Oh, I have to vote? OK, I am voting!
- Jimmy: Perfect! -- while thinking "Oh, Arnnon! He is such a nice
guy! I talked to him on Eric Schmidt's yacht. He knows a lot about wines! ... Hmm... I remember Paul Allen told me something about him... Never mind, he was just jealous because I am more often on Eric's yacht. Besides that, I completely forgot what's that about. Nothing serious, I am sure."
- Patricio: OK. Who will write the statement? My English is not perfect.
- Alice: Guy, he is Japanese!
I don't think this will be an issue for a long time. I think it's clear to Arnnon himself that he is definitely controversial to us. However, the pressure, lack of long-term institutional memory and small number of persons in the Board tend to create an open field for dilettantism.
On the other hand, I am sure that we could find relevant place for every non-controversial Jimmy's friend willing to contribute to our movement. I would like to see, for example, Richard Branson inside of Wikimedia movement, helping us to create Enterprise. And I am serious. We have to be bold and we have to be friends with other bold people. OK, maybe not Enterprise, but Stanford Torus inside of the Earth's orbit would do the job, as well :)