The Wikimedia NYC Board of Directors is deeply concerned by and opposes the constitutional changes proposed to the Bylaws of the Wikimedia Foundation, that in several ways mark a sudden reversal of direction from the community-focused, decentralized model promised by the 2030 Movement Strategy process. The Wikimedia NYC Board has posted a statement of opposition[1] and continues conversations internally. User:Pharos is also facilitating two meetings of the Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network this weekend - anyone with an affiliation is welcome to join, even if they are not an official liaison or representative.
Megs -- President, Wikimedia New York City
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/...
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network
On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 2:25 PM Yuri Astrakhan yuriastrakhan@gmail.com wrote:
I second that. It always amazed me that the community that has built the entire site does not have the majority in deciding the future of the site, and this seems to make it even less so.
On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 2:03 PM Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
From what I've read in the thread above I agree with Yair, and would add that this feels like a big power grab against the community.
I believe that Wikimedia Foundation must reject these proposed bylaws changes to preserve our open, democratic nature, and hold elections to fill all seats.
-- brion former CTO current software architect
On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 5:12 PM Asaf Bartov asaf.bartov@gmail.com wrote:
Hello. With my list-moderator hat, I am relaying two messages from Jimmy Wales, sent from an address he apparently hadn't used before, that were unintentionally caught by the mailing list filters and could not be let through. I paste them below.
Asaf
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jimmy Wales jimmywales@fandom.com To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Bcc: Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 05:12:55 +0100 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric On 10/7/20 6:32 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
The replacement of an explicit voting process with an unspecified process + schedule seems unnecessarily vague.
I agree that the vagueness is not good. To make sure everyone is aware: there has been no discussion and I'm unaware of anyone on the board who would be in favor of *removing* elections. I think the current wording here is awkward and may have been designed to not be super prescriptive about how exactly we might move to a process with a community-driven and community-approved "rubric" combined with elections. To remedy this defect seems quite easy - a future revision should explicitly include as much detail as is possible, and certainly should mandate elections.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jimmy Wales jimmywales@fandom.com To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Bcc: Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 05:13:08 +0100 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric On 10/7/20 10:03 PM, Yair Rand wrote:
(Another minor point: The change from the description of the appointed seats from "non-community-selected, non-chapter-selected" to "non-community-sourced" seems to imply that the Board is prohibited from filling these seats with any community members. Previously, there have been community members in these seats.)
I think this is a very good "catch". I'm sure that wasn't the intention of the rewording. I didn't write it and of course I can't speak for anyone else. I can say that there has been no discussion at the board level of anyone suggesting that we should not be able to select community members for these seats.
Indeed, my personal view is that as we pursue board expansion, it is crucial that we try as hard as we can find to fill the appointed seats with as many deeply experienced community members (who have other relevant skills) as we possibly can.
In terms of this proposal, I think that a minor change to clarify this minor point is a great idea!
I think the ambiguity probably arose with the change from "selected" to "sourced" - a change that, itself, deserves great scrutiny.
===============
(end of Jimmy's two messages. Future posts from Jimmy's new address should go through.)
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