The protection of any personal or confidential information was, to the best
of my knowledge, at all time guaranteed and has not been compromised. The
official task force, set up by the Trustees, worked under the standards of
keeping confidentiality, obviously. I thought this goes without saying, but
I am explicating it.
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:44 AM Adam Wight <awight(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
What Michel said... This is a very interesting story,
but I'm left to
imagine some crucial, looming details.
I have no first-hand knowledge of what really happened, but your
description of staff contacting a small number of Board members, and asking
for confidentiality, strongly indicates that the staff were fearful of some
sort of retribution, and each chose Board members who they personally
believed would protect them. This is an educated guess, based on our siege
mentality at the Foundation last November.
When the four of you were asked to hand over all information about the
case, that would naturally include any personal email communications. If I
were in your position, I would have respected the agreement of confidence
with anyone who had contacted me, up to and maybe even beyond a subpoena,
unless I had the authors' permission to release. If there is some legal
reason the Board members are not allowed behave according to this standard,
we need to make it very clear going forward. I doubt the staff would have
had these conversations if this is the case, and they had been informed so.
I'm also concerned that there seems to be a conflation between several
incidents--the original "Gang of Four" investigation was clearly a huge
mess and I would hope that apologies were made all around for what happened
there. However, protecting some sort of possibly compromising or personal
information is another thing entirely.
Hoping for more clarity,
Adam
On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Michel Vuijlsteke <wikipedia(a)zog.org>
wrote:
Just to be sure I understand the issue: staff
members reached out
specifically to the four of you and asked for confidentiality, and then
the
Board demanded 'all documents',
presumably including some confidential
staff information, and James only very reluctantly shared it?
Michel
On 2 May 2016 19:10, "Denny Vrandečić" <vrandecic(a)gmail.com> wrote:
In the following I want to present a personal
account of events leading
to
James’ removal as a Board member, as I remember
them. It was written
while
I was still on the Board, and the Board agreed on
having it sent. The
text
> was heavily discussed and edited amongst members of the Board, but in
the
end it
remains my personal account. I realize that it potentially
includes
> post-factum sensemaking, affecting my recollection of events.
>
> October 1 and 2 2015, Dariusz, James, Patricio and I received phone
calls
from a
small number of Wikimedia Foundation staff expressing concerns
about
> the Foundation. They asked explicitly for confidentiality. I wanted to
> approach the whole Board immediately, but due to considerations for
> confidentiality, the sensitive nature of the topic, and the lack of an
HR
> head at the time, the others decided against
at this moment.
Effectively,
> this created a conspiracy within the Board
from then on for the
following
> weeks.
>
> With Patricio’s approval, Dariusz and James started to personally
collect
> and ask for reports from staff.
Unfortunately, this investigation was
not
formally
approved by the whole Board. It was also conducted in a manner
that would not secure a professional and impartial process. After a few
weeks, we finally reached out to the rest of Board members. They
immediately recognized the necessity for a separate formal task force
which
was set up very quickly.
The formal task force was created end of October. This task force
involved
> outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact finding. The
first
request
of the task force to the Board members was to ask for all
documents
> and notes pertaining to the case. Unfortunately, although there has
been
> more than a week of time, this has not
happened in full.
>
> The task force presented its result at the November Board meeting,
where
it
was discovered during the second day of the Board
meeting that the
previous
> investigation has not provided all available information. Thus, the
fact
> finding had to be extended into the Board
meeting. At the Board meeting
> itself, James in particular was repeatedly asked to share his
documents,
which
only happened on the very last day of the retreat and after
several,
> increasingly vigorous requests. Some members of the Board were left
with
an
impression that James was reluctant to cooperate,
even though it was
expected that since he participated in an investigation done in an
improper
manner, that he would be more collaborative to
make up for these
mistakes.
Due to that lack of transparency and information sharing, the Board
retreat
> in November turned out to be extremely ineffective. If we had all
> information that was gathered available to the Board in due time, and
if
> that information was gathered more openly in
the first place, the Board
> could have acted more effectively.
>
> I was worried that the confidentiality of the Board would not be
> maintained, and I was particularly worried about James’ lack of
> understanding of confidential matters, a perception also fueled by his
> noncooperation and conduct. Some of his behaviour since unfortunately
> confirmed my worries. I raised this as an issue to the Board.
>
> While discussing the situation, James remained defensive, in my eyes
> answered questions partially, and, while formally expressing apologies,
> never conveyed that he really took ownership of his actions or
understood
what he
did wrong. This lead to a malfunctioning Board, and in order to
fix
> the situation I suggested James’ removal.
>
> I voted for James’ removal from the Board because of his perceived
> reluctance to cooperate with the formal investigation, his withholding
of
> information when asked for, his secrecy
towards other Board members,
even
once the
conspiracy was lifted, and him never convincingly taking
responsibility for and ownership of his actions and mistakes. This is
why I
get triggered if he positions himself as an
avatar of transparency. The
whole topic of the Knowledge Engine - although it played a part in the
events that lead to the November meeting - did not, for me, in any way
influence the vote on James’ removal. It was solely his conduct during
and
> following the November meeting.
>
> I am glad to see that, since James’ removal until I left, the Board has
> been functioning better.
>
> I hope that this account helps a little bit towards renewing our
culture
of
> transparency, but even more I hope for understanding. The Board
consists
of
volunteers and of humans - they cannot react in
real-time to events, as
the
Board was never set up to do so. Trustees -
myself included - made
mistakes. By opening up about them, I hope that we can facilitate a
faster
and more complete healing process, and also have
this knowledge and
experience available for future Board members and the community.
Denny
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