Mailing List Archive: Wikipedia: Foundation

Board-announcement: Board Restructuring

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wikimail at inbox

Apr 30, 2008, 7:11 AM

Post #176 of 189 (545 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 9:47 AM, David Gerard <dgerard [at] gmail> wrote:
> 2008/4/30 Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox>:
>
>
> > Is he interested? If not, then he's not a good example. If so, then
> > why doesn't he start participate on the mailing lists, and become
> > involved in the community? Note that Brian said "with no editing
> > experience and no involvement in the community", not just "not a
> > Wikipedian".
>
>
> I was most pleased to discover many Creative Commons people (including
> Joi Ito) reading commons-l. Obviously, there's a common interest on
> that list.
>
> OTOH, foundation-l could be more than a little offputting to people
> not used to our little ways (it's offputting enough for those who
> are).
>
There are lots of parts of the WMF that are offputting to people. But
if someone finds *all* the different activities of the WMF to be
offputting, why in the world would they want to be on its board?

Personally, I do believe that all board members or prospective board
members should participate on foundation-l at least once in a while,
but that isn't even what I suggested above. Someone who participated
only on commons-l might be OK, though I'd hope s/he'd at least drop a
line here as to why s/he doesn't participate here, and what could be
done to improve the situation so that s/he would.

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mbimmler at gmail

Apr 30, 2008, 7:18 AM

Post #177 of 189 (545 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox> wrote:

> There are lots of parts of the WMF that are offputting to people. But
> if someone finds *all* the different activities of the WMF to be
> offputting, why in the world would they want to be on its board?
>

Beg your pardon, how exactly are "considering the atmosphere on
foundation-l unpleasant enough not to join it" and "finding all the
different activites of the WMF to be offputting" related?

Of course we don't want people to join the WMF's board if they
consider the WMF in globo to be 'offputting'.
But surely, "finding foundation-l a not so nice place to be" wouldn't
be a contra reason in my books (yes, implied self-criticism...

> Personally, I do believe that all board members or prospective board
> members should participate on foundation-l at least once in a while,
> but that isn't even what I suggested above. Someone who participated
> only on commons-l might be OK, though I'd hope s/he'd at least drop a
> line here as to why s/he doesn't participate here, and what could be
> done to improve the situation so that s/he would.

I guess you'd hear three words: Signal-to-noise ratio.
The civility has rather improved, I think, though 'assume good faith'
could still be a bit more widely spread. But the signal-to-noise
ration is still at a fairly embarrassing level.

--
Michael Bimmler
mbimmler [at] gmail

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notafishz at gmail

Apr 30, 2008, 8:28 AM

Post #178 of 189 (546 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 7:41 PM, Durova <nadezhda.durova [at] gmail> wrote:

> It was also unwise at this juncture for some individuals to remind concerned
> volunteers of how severely limited their formal power is within Foundation
> bylaws, because in a friendly relationship nobody actually exercises the
> limits of their formal powers. Bylaws notwithstanding, the volunteers wield
> great power here - more so than in almost any nonprofit:
>
> *WMF is a provider of content, but its content is entirely copyleft.

Depending on how you interpret "provider"... The editors provide the
content. The WMF owns the servers that host it. The WMF makes the
content available to the general public.

> *WMF runs on powerful software, which is also copyleft.

The Wikimedia Foundation does not run on any software. Its projects do :)

> *WMF is almost entirely dependent upon volunteer labor for its content.

Right.

> *WMF is not particularly well funded: it has no endowment, no contingency
> fund, and would shut its doors in less than half a year if donations
> disappeared.

Probably... which brings me to your next comment:

> So long as the volunteers who fund WMF and provide its content remain
> content, there is no realistic danger that they will bring the full import
> of these facts to bear.

With all due respect, and I might be wrong in my interpretation of
your sentence, but...
the volunteers who provide content and the people who fund (donate)
the projects are, I believe, two different sets of people. While there
are donors who are editors and vice versa, we need to be aware that
the donors are way more numerous than the editors (thankfully). Not to
mention the number of our readers, which in turn is more important
than that of our donors (unfortunately ;-) ). In short, thinking the
power resides in the hands of the actual editors and only them is, in
my opinion, a shortcut we should not indulge in. 20 million and (even
lots of) volunteers ready to go "somewhere else" does not make a new
Wikipedia. The real power resides in the synergy of it all. The
volunteers, the readers, the donors.

Delphine
--
~notafish
http://blog.notanendive.org

NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent
to this address will probably get lost.

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delirium at hackish

Apr 30, 2008, 3:11 PM

Post #179 of 189 (545 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Brian wrote:
>
>> I disagree with this and think it is wrong that it is possible to be
>> a Board member or Foundation employee with no editing experience and
>> no involvement in the community. It will always be the case that
>> their first inclination was not participation, but was rather money
>> or power.
>>
>
> I do not agree. There are more types of people in the world than
> Wikipedians and people whose "first inclination" is "money or power".
>
> As a fine example, consider Eben Moglen, longtime attorney and board
> member for the Free Software Foundation:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen
>
> Eben would bring a wealth of experience to our board, and anyone who
> imagines that his motives for taking part in this would be "money or
> power" simply does not know Eben and his long history.
>
Well, there are two types of external candidates who have been suggested
at various points: 1) people with strong credentials related to our
mission, but not specifically in Wikimedia projects, such as Eben
Moglen, Lawrence Lessig, etc.; and 2) people with experience in
non-profit administration and management, but not related to our mission.

I personally have much more of a problem with #2 than #1. I think some
of #1 would be valuable, but probably not as a /majority/ of the board.
I would object to any of #2.

-Mark

P.S. - See also
<http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/12-non-profit-organizations/>,
and especially the hilariously defensive comments from the
nonprofit-industry rent-seekers.

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valdelli at gmail

Apr 30, 2008, 3:42 PM

Post #180 of 189 (544 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

IMHO the problem is here focused.

We imagine the experts like Christus which comes and start a revolution.

The question is: are they so expert to make a change in the environment
where they will work?

I have already said some years ago that the communities choose their
leaders (non the wikipedia community but a community in general), when
communities are driven by other persons which are not the leaders, we
have a manifest organigram and a different concealed organigram. With
this condition frictions, disputes and bad feelings start.

The elections of the communities assure that the leaders are represented
and the two organigrams are partially overlapped.

In this new restructure the two organigrams are badly overlapped.
Putting experts in a complex environment like Wikipedia's communities
it's a risk not for Wikimedia projects, but for themselves because they
could not have the power to introduce a "new deal".

Ilario

Delirium wrote:
>
> Well, there are two types of external candidates who have been suggested
> at various points: 1) people with strong credentials related to our
> mission, but not specifically in Wikimedia projects, such as Eben
> Moglen, Lawrence Lessig, etc.; and 2) people with experience in
> non-profit administration and management, but not related to our mission.
>
>
>

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mgodwin at wikimedia

Apr 30, 2008, 3:55 PM

Post #181 of 189 (545 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Ilario writes:

> Putting experts in a complex environment like Wikipedia's communities
> it's a risk not for Wikimedia projects, but for themselves because
> they
> could not have the power to introduce a "new deal".

For what it's worth, putting experts on the board of EFF who
themselves had no direct experience in civil liberties or freedom-of-
expression issues turned out okay. Some of them even lacked any
experience in nonprofits.

I don't think the process outlined by Jan-Bart poses a significant
risk to the communities or the projects.

I also think that if the communities wanted a "new deal," they could
get one through the processes they control (both direct election and
chapter selection). It does not even take a majority to shake things
up if a Board has gone off-track.

--Mike

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saintonge at telus

May 1, 2008, 9:41 AM

Post #182 of 189 (530 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Delirium wrote:
> Well, there are two types of external candidates who have been suggested
> at various points: 1) people with strong credentials related to our
> mission, but not specifically in Wikimedia projects, such as Eben
> Moglen, Lawrence Lessig, etc.; and 2) people with experience in
> non-profit administration and management, but not related to our mission.
>
> I personally have much more of a problem with #2 than #1. I think some
> of #1 would be valuable, but probably not as a /majority/ of the board.
> I would object to any of #2.
One way that the problems with #2 can be defused is by identifying the
specific need, advertising that need in the community, and only
searching outside if no suitable person can be found in the community.

This was done for the treasurer, and despite my feeling that the
requirements were too high, I need to recognize that such a procedure
was followed in the search for a treasurer.

Ec

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tim at tim-landscheidt

May 2, 2008, 4:20 AM

Post #183 of 189 (521 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox> wrote:

>> Or, in other words: There is no
>> power because you cannot give orders to volunteers.

> This meme is oft-repeated but still untrue. Almost every volunteer
> organization has a hierarchy and "gives orders" to its members to some
> extent. Its members are, of course, free to ignore those "orders",
> but the organization is then free to disallow them from further
> participation.

> Seriously, what volunteer organization can you think of where
> volunteers are told to just do whatever they feel like? Does the
> Obama campaign committee give volunteers a bunch of blank signs and
> say "go support Obama", or do they assign people to particular routes
> and ask them to follow particular rules while canvassing?

> The Wikimedia Foundation may run this way, and maybe it's even a good
> way of running things, but it's certainly not impossible to do it any
> other way.

I have spent about a decade working in election campaigns,
and, to repeat the "meme": You cannot give orders to volun-
teers. (Besides, I see no rationale in disallowing an editor
to edit article A before he has edited article B - probably
you end up with no article edited at all. What would be the
benefit?)

The US presidential election is a prime example: Polls
show that supporters of the Democratic Party will not only
cease their commitment if their favorite candidate is not
nominated, they will even vote for *another* party's candi-
date.

That is exactly the point I made in the post you replied
to: Should the board decide against the consensus of the
volunteers (editors, developers, system administrators,
whatever), they will walk.

Tim

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Anthere9 at yahoo

May 2, 2008, 5:42 AM

Post #184 of 189 (518 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Tim Landscheidt wrote:
> Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox> wrote:
>
>>> Or, in other words: There is no
>>> power because you cannot give orders to volunteers.
>
>> This meme is oft-repeated but still untrue. Almost every volunteer
>> organization has a hierarchy and "gives orders" to its members to some
>> extent. Its members are, of course, free to ignore those "orders",
>> but the organization is then free to disallow them from further
>> participation.
>
>> Seriously, what volunteer organization can you think of where
>> volunteers are told to just do whatever they feel like? Does the
>> Obama campaign committee give volunteers a bunch of blank signs and
>> say "go support Obama", or do they assign people to particular routes
>> and ask them to follow particular rules while canvassing?
>
>> The Wikimedia Foundation may run this way, and maybe it's even a good
>> way of running things, but it's certainly not impossible to do it any
>> other way.
>
> I have spent about a decade working in election campaigns,
> and, to repeat the "meme": You cannot give orders to volun-
> teers. (Besides, I see no rationale in disallowing an editor
> to edit article A before he has edited article B - probably
> you end up with no article edited at all. What would be the
> benefit?)
>
> The US presidential election is a prime example: Polls
> show that supporters of the Democratic Party will not only
> cease their commitment if their favorite candidate is not
> nominated, they will even vote for *another* party's candi-
> date.
>
> That is exactly the point I made in the post you replied
> to: Should the board decide against the consensus of the
> volunteers (editors, developers, system administrators,
> whatever), they will walk.
>
> Tim

I could not agree more with you.
but I would like to offer another perspective as well.

Board members are also volunteers. And you are correct "you cannot give
orders to volunteers".

A big difference between board and editors is that if an article has not
been written yet, an editor can not be blamed for not having written it.
Also, if an editor makes a mistake, the next editor can not be blamed
for the mistake done by the previous editor.

It is not the case for the board. If a board member makes a mistake,
then the whole board is seen as responsible. If a board member does not
do his job, then the whole board is guilty of not providing this
specific job.
The outcome is quite embarassing. As Chair, I feel that a particular
problematic situation. Whilst I "can not give orders to volunteer board
members", I have to make sure that certain things are done and properly
done (if not done, the community complains, the IRS complains, the audit
company complains, the readers of the website complain etc...). But
whilst I can not give orders to others, I can not fire them either.

I am left with either the choice of "letting the thing not done" (with
the risk of failing to my own duties as board member, or with the risk
of community blaming me as Chair, or with the risk of the community not
electing me :-)); or I am left with the choice of trying to do the job
myself, covering up for the others failures (at the risk of becoming
enslaved to the Foundation, ruining my own personal and professional life).

"This meme is oft-repeated but still untrue. Almost every volunteer
organization has a hierarchy and "gives orders" to its members to some
extent. Its members are, of course, free to ignore those "orders", but
the organization is then free to disallow them from further participation."

...is not something I believe is true neither in the case of our
projects, nor of WMF.

Ant

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wikimail at inbox

May 2, 2008, 6:30 AM

Post #185 of 189 (518 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 8:42 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 [at] yahoo> wrote:
> Tim Landscheidt wrote:
> > I have spent about a decade working in election campaigns,
> > and, to repeat the "meme": You cannot give orders to volun-
> > teers.

I see no sense that that is true.

> > (Besides, I see no rationale in disallowing an editor
> > to edit article A before he has edited article B - probably
> > you end up with no article edited at all. What would be the
> > benefit?)
> >
Depends what "Article A" and "Article B" are, but for the most part I
agree with this.

> > The US presidential election is a prime example: Polls
> > show that supporters of the Democratic Party will not only
> > cease their commitment if their favorite candidate is not
> > nominated, they will even vote for *another* party's candi-
> > date.
> >
Are you saying that all voters are "volunteers"? I guess this is true
in a sense, as one is not required by law to vote (in the US). But
when I referred to Obama volunteers I was thinking more of the people
who work directly on the campaign.

> > That is exactly the point I made in the post you replied
> > to: Should the board decide against the consensus of the
> > volunteers (editors, developers, system administrators,
> > whatever), they will walk.
> >
> > Tim
>
Depends on the gravity of the decision (I'm sure no one agrees with
the board 100%), but to some extent, yes, this is true.

> A big difference between board and editors is that if an article has not
> been written yet, an editor can not be blamed for not having written it.
> Also, if an editor makes a mistake, the next editor can not be blamed
> for the mistake done by the previous editor.
>
> It is not the case for the board. If a board member makes a mistake,
> then the whole board is seen as responsible. If a board member does not
> do his job, then the whole board is guilty of not providing this
> specific job.

This is only true if the individual board members choose not to
publicly point out the mistake or neglect and speak against it.

> The outcome is quite embarassing. As Chair, I feel that a particular
> problematic situation. Whilst I "can not give orders to volunteer board
> members", I have to make sure that certain things are done and properly
> done (if not done, the community complains, the IRS complains, the audit
> company complains, the readers of the website complain etc...). But
> whilst I can not give orders to others, I can not fire them either.
>
> I am left with either the choice of "letting the thing not done" (with
> the risk of failing to my own duties as board member, or with the risk
> of community blaming me as Chair, or with the risk of the community not
> electing me :-)); or I am left with the choice of trying to do the job
> myself, covering up for the others failures (at the risk of becoming
> enslaved to the Foundation, ruining my own personal and professional life).
>
I certainly hope you do not choose the latter. You don't owe anything
to us, Florence. If the Foundation is ruining your personal and/or
professional life, please resign. I hope that's not the case, but I
get the sense that you're saying it is.

As for the former, I think your first step, should you choose this
route, should be to come to the community and explain what's not being
done, or what's being done improperly. Then, if you feel you're
qualified to do so, write up a resolution to fix the problem. It's
not your fault if the rest of the board doesn't pass the resolution.

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Anthere9 at yahoo

May 2, 2008, 8:48 AM

Post #186 of 189 (520 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

In a private organization, a "manager" can motivate a group by using
various incentives. Saying publicly that someone is just not doing his
job is not exactly the best way to stimulate an already not-so-active
person.

The best solution is probably to have a cohesive group, with a deep
sense of the collective. A cohesive group, with complementary skills and
compatible personnalities.

The way to have such a group is by making it possible to someone to
actually define which group he wants, and to recruit the members of this
group.
This is not exactly how we build the board. The majority of members are
chosen by others, regardless of the cohesiveness of the group.

(I do not say that elections are a bad idea. I like elections. However,
the community should feel responsibility in the possible poorer results
that might be expected)

Ant

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wikimail at inbox

May 2, 2008, 11:41 AM

Post #187 of 189 (519 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 [at] yahoo> wrote:
> In a private organization, a "manager" can motivate a group by using
> various incentives. Saying publicly that someone is just not doing his
> job is not exactly the best way to stimulate an already not-so-active
> person.
>
Maybe not, but at least then the whole board won't take the blame,
which I thought was what you were complaining about.

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wikimail at inbox

May 2, 2008, 11:50 AM

Post #188 of 189 (519 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 2:41 PM, Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox> wrote:
> On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 [at] yahoo> wrote:
> > In a private organization, a "manager" can motivate a group by using
> > various incentives. Saying publicly that someone is just not doing his
> > job is not exactly the best way to stimulate an already not-so-active
> > person.
> >
> Maybe not, but at least then the whole board won't take the blame,
> which I thought was what you were complaining about.
>
Moreover, if a board member persistently doesn't do his job, and
refuses to resign, there's always removal.

You say "the community should feel responsibility in the possible
poorer results that might be expected", but if the community doesn't
have feedback over who it is that's giving poor results, and the
community doesn't have any removal power anyhow, then I disagree that
the community does have any responsibility over this.

This cloak-and-dagger treatment of what you apparently consider a big
enough problem to bring up on this list is not at all helpful.

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tim at tim-landscheidt

May 2, 2008, 3:54 PM

Post #189 of 189 (516 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Anthony <wikimail [at] inbox> wrote:

>> > I have spent about a decade working in election campaigns,
>> > and, to repeat the "meme": You cannot give orders to volun-
>> > teers.

> I see no sense that that is true.

Well, I see sense in it. And I have seen many student volun-
teers not showing up at events before 9:00, many volunteers
not preparing presentations on topics they did not like,
many volunteers not coming back the second day after they
discovered on the first day that posting bills can be quite
tiring and canvassing very frustrating, etc., etc., etc. If
your methods had a higher success rate, please share them
with me. I'd be very interested in them.

The only organizations with a working approach I know of
are churches and sects who condemn non-compliants to Dante's
Inferno. But unfortunately, my divine qualities are a bit
underdeveloped.

> [...]
>> > The US presidential election is a prime example: Polls
>> > show that supporters of the Democratic Party will not only
>> > cease their commitment if their favorite candidate is not
>> > nominated, they will even vote for *another* party's candi-
>> > date.

> Are you saying that all voters are "volunteers"? I guess this is true
> in a sense, as one is not required by law to vote (in the US). But
> when I referred to Obama volunteers I was thinking more of the people
> who work directly on the campaign.
> [...]

You will see the same phenomenon with people working direct-
ly on the campaign, even if for example Obama would take the
second place on a double ticket.

And I would consider every voter for Obama a volunteer un-
less one is required by law to vote for him.

Tim

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