OK, so I guess my question is (and we talked about this on IRC too) -- who has the power or the ability -- or who *should*, in a perfect world -- create such a committee? We don't have much precedent for this. There were concerns over who or what body can create governance/oversight structures, particularly if this isn't really just a Foundation issue.
I totally agree that part of such a body's role could be to help coordinate between the permanent staff whose work might touch on Wikimania, and the rotating local organization team. -- phoebe On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 3:48 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > A couple of fast thoughts: > > * I think it's debatable whether it's board-level or not. It's board-level > in the sense that it's "not staff-level" -- meaning it's mainly a community > responsibility rather than a staff responsibility. But to the extent that > part of the role of the committee would be to ask the staff for help if > Wikimania is floundering, that is probably not a board-level issue. For > example, I can't imagine the board making a resolution asking me to intervene > to offer more support if one year Wikimania were floundering. That just > doesn't feel like a governance issue. > > * Which leads me to point two, which is that from my perspective, I actually > do want someone to flag to me if Wikimania is floundering, and to ask me > officially to have the staff get involved. Wikimania in Gdansk this year has > had some problems, and I have felt awkward about how to best resolve them, > given that (again) it's a community-led event, not a staff-led event. But I > don't think the board should need to involve itself in that, because again, I > think it's not a governance issue. > > * Those aren't super-significant issues from my perspective though. Upshot > from my perspective: I think that there's lots of good energy and thinking > happening on this, and it feels like people are pretty aligned in feeling we > want some form of oversight/guidance/something, in place supporting excellent > Wikimanias every year. Which is great. Does someone want to organize a > meeting about this for Gdansk? I'm hoping Phoebe will attend, and Casey and > SJ, and whoever else is interested. I will be happy to put it in my > schedule, and I think James would probably be interested too. (James Owen, > not Forrester. I actually don't know if James Forrester is coming this year, > although now that I think of it, maybe he is one of the train-travelling > people?) > > Thanks, > Sue > -----Original Message----- > From: phoebe ayers <[email protected]> > Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:28:37 > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<[email protected]> > Cc: Wikimania general list \(open > subscription\)<[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Floating a notion: permanent Wikimania committee? > > On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Sue Gardner <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi folks, >> >> For several years now, people have occasionally floated the notion >> that there should be a permanent Wikimania oversight committee – >> basically, a group of people responsible for giving some coaching and >> guidance and oversight to the local planning team each year. Over the >> years, support has been offered each year by people like Phoebe, James >> Forrester, Delphine (Delphine both in her staff role and as a >> volunteer) and SJ … but there has never (AFAIK) been a formal >> oversight committee. I think there probably should be. > > Hello Sue and all, > > Good timing -- we just had a long conversation about this in the > #wikimedia open meeting this afternoon. There were quite a few > participants, including several past wikimania organizers. > > Quick summary of that discussion: > * there is definite interest in an ongoing Wikimania (oversight, > governance, guidance) (body, committee, group) (we talked for quite a > while about those various names and their different connotations) > > * there are a few potential roles that people see for such a group: > ** 1) collecting and writing better documentation about the > conference, including best practices for organization and what has > happened in the past > ** 2) answering questions from Wikimania organizers about past > practices, helping coordinate who to ask about various aspects > ** 3) providing oversight to the overall wikimania process -- for > instance making sure that a bid jury is called and the bids are > submitted in time (like elections) > ** 4) providing oversight/governance as the conference progresses -- > for instance, getting regular reports about the conference. Along with > this, the org team would have someone to report to if, say, a venue > burns down or some other catastrophe happens. > > These ideas are roughly in order of how much controversy they > generated among discussion participants. I think we all pretty much > agreed that we need better conference documentation, and a loose > community group of past organizers and interested participants can > provide such documentation. Here's a start: > > Conference handbook: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Handbook > -- let's write the big book of Wikimania > Conference checklist: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/checklist -- make sure you > have everything you need > Conference community: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/community -- a start at a > community group, w/ interested participants. > > We discussed however that for any oversight/governance functions we > might need a more formalized structure and perhaps a formal mandate. > This seemed like a Board-level issue to several people (including me). > We also discussed that there's not a good process for proposing and > forming community committees that would interact with the Foundation > on various issues. > > What do you all think? > > best, > Phoebe > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
