Re: [Wikimedia-l] Personal Update

[Chris Keating]

Fortunately the Board isn't required to consider whether hypothetically in
future some other organisation's interests might conflict with the
Foundation's: only whether in practice they do.

(By the way, I am not surprised people read your original email as calling
for Kelly to resign - it was the bit where you said the board should
"seriously consider" it and listed all the reasons in favour of her
leaving. Generally it doesn't help persuade people if you carefully word
your emails to heavily hint that you want a particular thing, but then
dispute that you ever wanted it :) )

On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 7:25 PM, Rogol Domedonfors 
wrote:

> Sam,  Thanks you for your views.  Referring to the possible conflicts
> between Wikimedia and Quora, you say that "there is almost no current
> overlap between the organizations' main projects".  Whether or not this is
> true right now, it is entirely possible that it may not be true in future,
> and I gave an example that you did not address (Knowledge Engine).  The WMF
> is "dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of
> free multilingual, educational content, and to providing the full content
> of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge", committed to "a
> world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all
> knowledge"  Quora's business is to "share and grow the world’s knowledge".
> It is not at all obvious to me that these can never be in conflict, indeed
> they seem quite remarkably similar, with the signficant exception of the
> profit element.  Is there some demarcation agreement that we have not been
> told about?
>
> "Rogol"
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Board: Vacant appointed seats and Turnover (Was: Personal Update)

[James Heilman]

To clarify, the issues facing the WMF preexisted Denny, Dariusz and myself
joining the board. Our perspectives started the process of addressing
things. In fact I raised concerns regarding staff turn over a couple of
weeks before joining the board at Wikimania.

James

On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 8:18 AM, Nataliia Tymkiv 
wrote:

> Lodewijk, Anders, James, Dariusz, thanks for your input!
>
> Re: timing. I absolutely agree. But internal discussions are not happening
> at once as well, before writing this I have waited for people to chime in
> with the arguments to have my own opinion shaped. I would really love to
> find a good balance between transparency and efficiency and safe space for
> discussions. But I haven't found it. I had a plan to publish this last
> week, so there would be at least two weeks for discussing, but
> unfortunately I had some work and health related issues that prevented me
> from writing this sooner. Remember, there is no shared understanding on the
> desired level of transparency, and how to achieve that transparency [1]
>
> Re: onboarding. An interesting idea. I was also thinking of having some
> kind of "a letter" from one outgoing Board member to the incoming Board
> member, but it (probably) should be not personal, rather officer wise (the
> chair of the Audit committee to the next chair of the Audit committee).
>
> Re: extended terms. Aye, Lodewijk, I can see reasoning behind "6 months to
> make entry points fit together better". Though I can also understand that
> this is not the time to lose expertise.
>
> Anders, I also agree. Three year time sounds better, as it is really
> difficult to become a part of the team in a shorter period of time: we have
> a few in-person meetings and it is not that we interact with each other too
> much (well, at this point I would rather say even "enough" rather than too
> much).
>
> James, yes, the challenges were really big. The issue is to learn from the
> crisis. And just to clarify, you said that "New perspective can be
> critical" - are you referring to new people joining the Board?
>
> Dariusz, Alice, for example, haven't served 6 years yet, if I am not
> mistaken. It seems that this is her fourth/fifth year.
> And I doubt her expertise is not needed anymore. Probably now more than
> ever.
>
> Yes, onboarding of 6 new members does not seem optimal, even four seem to
> be a little too much.
> But there is a possibility that some not brand new people would join the
> Board.
> And I hope we will improve the onboarding process (having people join as
> members of the Advisory Board or just non-voting observers can be a good
> practice to implement).
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_
> Board_Governance_Committee/Board_transparency/Status_report_October_2016
>
> Best regards,
> antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
>
> *NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
> hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
> should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
> advance!*
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 3:28 PM, James Heilman  wrote:
>
> > The last group of community elected trustees were presented with an
> > exceedingly difficult issue to solve months into their term. Moral among
> > staff was critically low and many key employees had left, were leaving,
> or
> > were thinking about leaving.
> >
> > The board at that time disagreed about what to do about the situation in
> > question. We saw turn over of three board members at the end of 2015
> > including Jan Bart, Stu West, and myself. The community gained greater
> > clarity of the issues and played a critical roll in pushing for a new ED.
> > We are now in a much better position than before even though it took
> longer
> > to get there than I had hoped.
> >
> > The issues became more solvable in part as we saw two long term board
> > members leave after more than six years on the board. I am supportive of
> 6
> > year maximum term limits. New perspective can be critical.
> >
> > James
> >
> > On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Nataliia Tymkiv 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I am forking a discussion on Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees
> > vacant
> > > appointed seat(s) and turnover at this point.
> > >
> > > == The Board members start and end terms (Turnover) ==
> > > I have drafted here three charts indicating the starting and ending of
> > the
> > > terms of the Board members:
> > >
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikimedia_
> > > Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_terms
> > >
> > > The first chart shows how it will go now, if nothing is changed.
> > >
> > > As you can see we have a lot of onboarding / offboarding even without
> > > anything extraordinary happening, and it means that the Board has
> > scarcely
> > > any time to work as a team and concentrate on things beyond looking for
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Board: Vacant appointed seats and Turnover (Was: Personal Update)

[Nataliia Tymkiv]

Lodewijk, Anders, James, Dariusz, thanks for your input!

Re: timing. I absolutely agree. But internal discussions are not happening
at once as well, before writing this I have waited for people to chime in
with the arguments to have my own opinion shaped. I would really love to
find a good balance between transparency and efficiency and safe space for
discussions. But I haven't found it. I had a plan to publish this last
week, so there would be at least two weeks for discussing, but
unfortunately I had some work and health related issues that prevented me
from writing this sooner. Remember, there is no shared understanding on the
desired level of transparency, and how to achieve that transparency [1]

Re: onboarding. An interesting idea. I was also thinking of having some
kind of "a letter" from one outgoing Board member to the incoming Board
member, but it (probably) should be not personal, rather officer wise (the
chair of the Audit committee to the next chair of the Audit committee).

Re: extended terms. Aye, Lodewijk, I can see reasoning behind "6 months to
make entry points fit together better". Though I can also understand that
this is not the time to lose expertise.

Anders, I also agree. Three year time sounds better, as it is really
difficult to become a part of the team in a shorter period of time: we have
a few in-person meetings and it is not that we interact with each other too
much (well, at this point I would rather say even "enough" rather than too
much).

James, yes, the challenges were really big. The issue is to learn from the
crisis. And just to clarify, you said that "New perspective can be
critical" - are you referring to new people joining the Board?

Dariusz, Alice, for example, haven't served 6 years yet, if I am not
mistaken. It seems that this is her fourth/fifth year.
And I doubt her expertise is not needed anymore. Probably now more than
ever.

Yes, onboarding of 6 new members does not seem optimal, even four seem to
be a little too much.
But there is a possibility that some not brand new people would join the
Board.
And I hope we will improve the onboarding process (having people join as
members of the Advisory Board or just non-voting observers can be a good
practice to implement).

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_transparency/Status_report_October_2016

Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv

*NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
advance!*


On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 3:28 PM, James Heilman  wrote:

> The last group of community elected trustees were presented with an
> exceedingly difficult issue to solve months into their term. Moral among
> staff was critically low and many key employees had left, were leaving, or
> were thinking about leaving.
>
> The board at that time disagreed about what to do about the situation in
> question. We saw turn over of three board members at the end of 2015
> including Jan Bart, Stu West, and myself. The community gained greater
> clarity of the issues and played a critical roll in pushing for a new ED.
> We are now in a much better position than before even though it took longer
> to get there than I had hoped.
>
> The issues became more solvable in part as we saw two long term board
> members leave after more than six years on the board. I am supportive of 6
> year maximum term limits. New perspective can be critical.
>
> James
>
> On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Nataliia Tymkiv 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I am forking a discussion on Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees
> vacant
> > appointed seat(s) and turnover at this point.
> >
> > == The Board members start and end terms (Turnover) ==
> > I have drafted here three charts indicating the starting and ending of
> the
> > terms of the Board members:
> >
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikimedia_
> > Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_terms
> >
> > The first chart shows how it will go now, if nothing is changed.
> >
> > As you can see we have a lot of onboarding / offboarding even without
> > anything extraordinary happening, and it means that the Board has
> scarcely
> > any time to work as a team and concentrate on things beyond looking for
> new
> > people and onboarding them.
> >
> > The picture is "darkened" by the fact that the onboarding process is not
> > formalized enough and I would rather concentrate on working on improving
> > the onboarding process, so we have it in place when new members join,
> > rather then rush to appoint new Trustees.
> >
> > We had a discussion about it in the Board Governanace Committee (BGC),
> and
> > it seems that having less on- and off-boardings-points per year (f.ex.,
> at
> > Wikimania) should be something to plan for. And less people 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Board: Vacant appointed seats and Turnover (Was: Personal Update)

[Dariusz Jemielniak]

+1 to what Lodewijk, Anders, and James wrote.

I see benefits in onboarding around Wikimania, and having a system in which
each year we add three people (one year from the community, one from
chapters, one from experts).

However, I don't see it as an argument to extend the terms for current
trustees for a transition period.

There should be some limit (6 years now), and also reappointments in the
case of experts should be based both on the organizational needs, the level
of expertise offered, and the energy and value added - just as Anders
mentioned, these are not always given and stable.

You wrote that " in case this extension is too much to ask from the current
trustees, I'd rather leave the seats vacant."

I personally would rather fill the currently empty expert seat in January,
at the same time that the remaining  two seats are open for
(re/)appointment and set their term till Wikimania 2018.l, so that it
clicks perfectly with the desires calendar.

1.5 year is a short but manageable term, that for new people will also
offer us some ability to check them out, and for veterans will not as much
strain as a full term.

Yes, we will have a lot of onboarding  (twice in a year in 2017), but it is
still better than potentially onboarding 6 entirely new people at the same
time; part of continuity is avoiding total revamping (if terms were
extended by half a year), and better than extending by a really long period
of 1.5 years.

Best

Dj "pundit"

On Nov 5, 2016 14:12, "Lodewijk"  wrote:

> Hi Nataliia,
>
> It would have been nice if you could have shared this a bit earlier, given
> that apparently the board meeting is next week. This gives little time for
> discussion of your proposal, on a topic that has received wide interest
> previously. Perhaps that could be considered a point for improvement,
> especially on these non-urgent reform topics. That gives you more time to
> incorporate the feedback into your proposal.
>
> I destilled a few different topics from your email:
> 1) Better onboarding processes
> - sounds great to me. Please feel free to invite community members in
> setting up such processes as well. I understood that something like that
> was aimed to happen at past Wikimania, and that sounds like a good move!
> Getting a clear 'synopsis' would probably also help, something that can
> serve as a reference point to make sure that nothing is missing. I would
> also advise the method I have seen some WMF employees use (but this may be
> more time consuming), and that is to have the new board members do some
> 'interviews' or in general structured conversations with community members,
> staff members and other stakeholders during their first months. Wikimania
> is a great opportunity for that.
>
> 2) Changing the 'entry point' for appointed board members from January to
> Wikimania
> - May be sensible or not. The upside is that more things happen at once,
> which means less repetition. The downside is that everything happens.. at
> once. You'll have potentially a board meeting where 40% is brand new.
> That's a lot. I don't have a strong preference either way, but whatever you
> choose, I think it'd be good to introduce an observer status for upcoming
> board members in the months leading up to their formal appointment - if
> that doesn't exist yet - especially for people with less of a Wikimedia
> background. You could use the January-Wikimania gap for that.
>
> 3) you propose longer terms
> - 3 year terms are already quite long in my opinion. Continuity can happen
> in two ways: because you force it to happen (i.e. by longer terms), or
> because people get re-appointed/re-selected. In the past years there was a
> lot of turnover in the community and chapter seats because the latter did
> not happen: board members were not re-selected. There is probably some
> relationship with how the board performance was appreciated by the
> electorate. And one could argue that in such a case, it might maybe be
> better to not force more continuity - because it also results in less
> opportunity to improve the board when there's an observed need for that. In
> this light, I would definitely not be in favour for lengthening the term
> lengths other that the occasional 6 months to make entry points fit
> together better.
>
> I hope this caught the changes you're proposing? Please correct me if I
> missed something.
>
> Thanks for sharing though, and I hope that you'll engage in a constructive
> discussion despite the short time left before the board meeting :)
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
>
>
> 2016-11-05 13:07 GMT+01:00 Nataliia Tymkiv :
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I am forking a discussion on Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees
> vacant
> > appointed seat(s) and turnover at this point.
> >
> > == The Board members start and end terms (Turnover) ==
> > I have drafted here three charts indicating the starting and ending of
> the
> > terms of the Board members:
> >
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Board: Vacant appointed seats and Turnover (Was: Personal Update)

[James Heilman]

The last group of community elected trustees were presented with an
exceedingly difficult issue to solve months into their term. Moral among
staff was critically low and many key employees had left, were leaving, or
were thinking about leaving.

The board at that time disagreed about what to do about the situation in
question. We saw turn over of three board members at the end of 2015
including Jan Bart, Stu West, and myself. The community gained greater
clarity of the issues and played a critical roll in pushing for a new ED.
We are now in a much better position than before even though it took longer
to get there than I had hoped.

The issues became more solvable in part as we saw two long term board
members leave after more than six years on the board. I am supportive of 6
year maximum term limits. New perspective can be critical.

James

On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Nataliia Tymkiv 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I am forking a discussion on Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees vacant
> appointed seat(s) and turnover at this point.
>
> == The Board members start and end terms (Turnover) ==
> I have drafted here three charts indicating the starting and ending of the
> terms of the Board members:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikimedia_
> Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_terms
>
> The first chart shows how it will go now, if nothing is changed.
>
> As you can see we have a lot of onboarding / offboarding even without
> anything extraordinary happening, and it means that the Board has scarcely
> any time to work as a team and concentrate on things beyond looking for new
> people and onboarding them.
>
> The picture is "darkened" by the fact that the onboarding process is not
> formalized enough and I would rather concentrate on working on improving
> the onboarding process, so we have it in place when new members join,
> rather then rush to appoint new Trustees.
>
> We had a discussion about it in the Board Governanace Committee (BGC), and
> it seems that having less on- and off-boardings-points per year (f.ex., at
> Wikimania) should be something to plan for. And less people joining per
> year.
>
> The second and third charts illustrate this idea: every year three new
> trustees join the Board, with the community-, affiliates- and appointed
> seats joining in different years (well, one appointed seat join together
> with the affiliates).
>
> Of course the transition period will be a challenge. But it should improve
> the workflow.
>
> == Continuity ==
> The second and third charts also suggests that the terms are extended. WMF
> had a really turbulent last two years, this Board (from my perspective)
> needs some time to work together as a group, so (again, my perspective) I
> would really love if the terms can be extended, so we can concentrate on
> improving how we work and creating / formalizing the processes.
>
> But in case this extension is too much to ask from the current trustees,
> I'd rather leave the seats vacant.
>
> == Onboarding and Pool of candidates ==
> Just so it is clear to everyone, it is a real challenge if a new trustee
> joins. It should not be so. We have started collecting things for a new
> Board member to have a smoother onboarding process.
>
> There is also an idea about having Advisory Board working: to not lose the
> knowledge we had with every trustee who leaves the Board, but maybe we can
> also use this group as a pool of excellent possible candidates to "optimize
> the hiring process" [1]. And joining the Advisory Board can also be used to
> onboard people gently. Without too much time commitment, working rather on
> separate tasks, but already being included in the discussions to some
> level.
>
> == Discussion ==
> I hope it is clear from things I said above, but in case it is not, the
> discussion is not finalized yet and I plan to have it decided one way or
> another at the Board meeting in a week. It should be decided, so the BGC
> can move on with hiring new Board members or concentrate on the improvement
> of the hiring and onboarding processes; so the Standing Elections committee
> can plan the timeline; so the Chair of the Board can plan the dates for the
> Board meetings for the next year etc.
>
> As I have mentioned before, please comment / suggest. I have listed the
> problems I myself see from the inside. And my thoughts about that. You can
> raise questions and concerns from your points of views. The more issues
> discussed, the more informed our decision will be.
>
> If you prefer posting on Meta, please comment / suggest on the relevant
> talk pages:
> - The Board members start and end terms
>  Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_terms>
> - Appointing someone to the vacant appointed seat
>  Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Appointing_someone_
> to_the_vacant_appointed_seat=edit=1>
> - 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Board: Vacant appointed seats and Turnover (Was: Personal Update)

[Anders Wennersten]

My experience from following the board of WMSE several years, and where 
we now have two years terms is


First year is a learning phase where you more listen then participate

Second year most get more involved and find it very stimulated to be in 
the Board


Third year some get very active, while others are active on the lower 
level as in year two


Fourth year, some continue being active, while others get more passive, 
and also less stimulated


This experience support your proposal to go for a three year term

Anders


Den 2016-11-05 kl. 14:11, skrev Lodewijk:

Hi Nataliia,

It would have been nice if you could have shared this a bit earlier, given
that apparently the board meeting is next week. This gives little time for
discussion of your proposal, on a topic that has received wide interest
previously. Perhaps that could be considered a point for improvement,
especially on these non-urgent reform topics. That gives you more time to
incorporate the feedback into your proposal.

I destilled a few different topics from your email:
1) Better onboarding processes
- sounds great to me. Please feel free to invite community members in
setting up such processes as well. I understood that something like that
was aimed to happen at past Wikimania, and that sounds like a good move!
Getting a clear 'synopsis' would probably also help, something that can
serve as a reference point to make sure that nothing is missing. I would
also advise the method I have seen some WMF employees use (but this may be
more time consuming), and that is to have the new board members do some
'interviews' or in general structured conversations with community members,
staff members and other stakeholders during their first months. Wikimania
is a great opportunity for that.

2) Changing the 'entry point' for appointed board members from January to
Wikimania
- May be sensible or not. The upside is that more things happen at once,
which means less repetition. The downside is that everything happens.. at
once. You'll have potentially a board meeting where 40% is brand new.
That's a lot. I don't have a strong preference either way, but whatever you
choose, I think it'd be good to introduce an observer status for upcoming
board members in the months leading up to their formal appointment - if
that doesn't exist yet - especially for people with less of a Wikimedia
background. You could use the January-Wikimania gap for that.

3) you propose longer terms
- 3 year terms are already quite long in my opinion. Continuity can happen
in two ways: because you force it to happen (i.e. by longer terms), or
because people get re-appointed/re-selected. In the past years there was a
lot of turnover in the community and chapter seats because the latter did
not happen: board members were not re-selected. There is probably some
relationship with how the board performance was appreciated by the
electorate. And one could argue that in such a case, it might maybe be
better to not force more continuity - because it also results in less
opportunity to improve the board when there's an observed need for that. In
this light, I would definitely not be in favour for lengthening the term
lengths other that the occasional 6 months to make entry points fit
together better.

I hope this caught the changes you're proposing? Please correct me if I
missed something.

Thanks for sharing though, and I hope that you'll engage in a constructive
discussion despite the short time left before the board meeting :)

Best,
Lodewijk



2016-11-05 13:07 GMT+01:00 Nataliia Tymkiv :


Hi all,

I am forking a discussion on Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees vacant
appointed seat(s) and turnover at this point.

== The Board members start and end terms (Turnover) ==
I have drafted here three charts indicating the starting and ending of the
terms of the Board members:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikimedia_
Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_terms

The first chart shows how it will go now, if nothing is changed.

As you can see we have a lot of onboarding / offboarding even without
anything extraordinary happening, and it means that the Board has scarcely
any time to work as a team and concentrate on things beyond looking for new
people and onboarding them.

The picture is "darkened" by the fact that the onboarding process is not
formalized enough and I would rather concentrate on working on improving
the onboarding process, so we have it in place when new members join,
rather then rush to appoint new Trustees.

We had a discussion about it in the Board Governanace Committee (BGC), and
it seems that having less on- and off-boardings-points per year (f.ex., at
Wikimania) should be something to plan for. And less people joining per
year.

The second and third charts illustrate this idea: every year three new
trustees join the Board, with the community-, affiliates- and appointed
seats joining in different years (well, one appointed seat join 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF Board: Vacant appointed seats and Turnover (Was: Personal Update)

[Lodewijk]

Hi Nataliia,

It would have been nice if you could have shared this a bit earlier, given
that apparently the board meeting is next week. This gives little time for
discussion of your proposal, on a topic that has received wide interest
previously. Perhaps that could be considered a point for improvement,
especially on these non-urgent reform topics. That gives you more time to
incorporate the feedback into your proposal.

I destilled a few different topics from your email:
1) Better onboarding processes
- sounds great to me. Please feel free to invite community members in
setting up such processes as well. I understood that something like that
was aimed to happen at past Wikimania, and that sounds like a good move!
Getting a clear 'synopsis' would probably also help, something that can
serve as a reference point to make sure that nothing is missing. I would
also advise the method I have seen some WMF employees use (but this may be
more time consuming), and that is to have the new board members do some
'interviews' or in general structured conversations with community members,
staff members and other stakeholders during their first months. Wikimania
is a great opportunity for that.

2) Changing the 'entry point' for appointed board members from January to
Wikimania
- May be sensible or not. The upside is that more things happen at once,
which means less repetition. The downside is that everything happens.. at
once. You'll have potentially a board meeting where 40% is brand new.
That's a lot. I don't have a strong preference either way, but whatever you
choose, I think it'd be good to introduce an observer status for upcoming
board members in the months leading up to their formal appointment - if
that doesn't exist yet - especially for people with less of a Wikimedia
background. You could use the January-Wikimania gap for that.

3) you propose longer terms
- 3 year terms are already quite long in my opinion. Continuity can happen
in two ways: because you force it to happen (i.e. by longer terms), or
because people get re-appointed/re-selected. In the past years there was a
lot of turnover in the community and chapter seats because the latter did
not happen: board members were not re-selected. There is probably some
relationship with how the board performance was appreciated by the
electorate. And one could argue that in such a case, it might maybe be
better to not force more continuity - because it also results in less
opportunity to improve the board when there's an observed need for that. In
this light, I would definitely not be in favour for lengthening the term
lengths other that the occasional 6 months to make entry points fit
together better.

I hope this caught the changes you're proposing? Please correct me if I
missed something.

Thanks for sharing though, and I hope that you'll engage in a constructive
discussion despite the short time left before the board meeting :)

Best,
Lodewijk



2016-11-05 13:07 GMT+01:00 Nataliia Tymkiv :

> Hi all,
>
> I am forking a discussion on Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees vacant
> appointed seat(s) and turnover at this point.
>
> == The Board members start and end terms (Turnover) ==
> I have drafted here three charts indicating the starting and ending of the
> terms of the Board members:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikimedia_
> Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_terms
>
> The first chart shows how it will go now, if nothing is changed.
>
> As you can see we have a lot of onboarding / offboarding even without
> anything extraordinary happening, and it means that the Board has scarcely
> any time to work as a team and concentrate on things beyond looking for new
> people and onboarding them.
>
> The picture is "darkened" by the fact that the onboarding process is not
> formalized enough and I would rather concentrate on working on improving
> the onboarding process, so we have it in place when new members join,
> rather then rush to appoint new Trustees.
>
> We had a discussion about it in the Board Governanace Committee (BGC), and
> it seems that having less on- and off-boardings-points per year (f.ex., at
> Wikimania) should be something to plan for. And less people joining per
> year.
>
> The second and third charts illustrate this idea: every year three new
> trustees join the Board, with the community-, affiliates- and appointed
> seats joining in different years (well, one appointed seat join together
> with the affiliates).
>
> Of course the transition period will be a challenge. But it should improve
> the workflow.
>
> == Continuity ==
> The second and third charts also suggests that the terms are extended. WMF
> had a really turbulent last two years, this Board (from my perspective)
> needs some time to work together as a group, so (again, my perspective) I
> would really love if the terms can be extended, so we can concentrate on
> improving how we work and creating / formalizing the processes.
>
> 

[Wikimedia-l] WMF Board: Vacant appointed seats and Turnover (Was: Personal Update)

[Nataliia Tymkiv]

Hi all,

I am forking a discussion on Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees vacant
appointed seat(s) and turnover at this point.

== The Board members start and end terms (Turnover) ==
I have drafted here three charts indicating the starting and ending of the
terms of the Board members:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_terms

The first chart shows how it will go now, if nothing is changed.

As you can see we have a lot of onboarding / offboarding even without
anything extraordinary happening, and it means that the Board has scarcely
any time to work as a team and concentrate on things beyond looking for new
people and onboarding them.

The picture is "darkened" by the fact that the onboarding process is not
formalized enough and I would rather concentrate on working on improving
the onboarding process, so we have it in place when new members join,
rather then rush to appoint new Trustees.

We had a discussion about it in the Board Governanace Committee (BGC), and
it seems that having less on- and off-boardings-points per year (f.ex., at
Wikimania) should be something to plan for. And less people joining per
year.

The second and third charts illustrate this idea: every year three new
trustees join the Board, with the community-, affiliates- and appointed
seats joining in different years (well, one appointed seat join together
with the affiliates).

Of course the transition period will be a challenge. But it should improve
the workflow.

== Continuity ==
The second and third charts also suggests that the terms are extended. WMF
had a really turbulent last two years, this Board (from my perspective)
needs some time to work together as a group, so (again, my perspective) I
would really love if the terms can be extended, so we can concentrate on
improving how we work and creating / formalizing the processes.

But in case this extension is too much to ask from the current trustees,
I'd rather leave the seats vacant.

== Onboarding and Pool of candidates ==
Just so it is clear to everyone, it is a real challenge if a new trustee
joins. It should not be so. We have started collecting things for a new
Board member to have a smoother onboarding process.

There is also an idea about having Advisory Board working: to not lose the
knowledge we had with every trustee who leaves the Board, but maybe we can
also use this group as a pool of excellent possible candidates to "optimize
the hiring process" [1]. And joining the Advisory Board can also be used to
onboard people gently. Without too much time commitment, working rather on
separate tasks, but already being included in the discussions to some level.

== Discussion ==
I hope it is clear from things I said above, but in case it is not, the
discussion is not finalized yet and I plan to have it decided one way or
another at the Board meeting in a week. It should be decided, so the BGC
can move on with hiring new Board members or concentrate on the improvement
of the hiring and onboarding processes; so the Standing Elections committee
can plan the timeline; so the Chair of the Board can plan the dates for the
Board meetings for the next year etc.

As I have mentioned before, please comment / suggest. I have listed the
problems I myself see from the inside. And my thoughts about that. You can
raise questions and concerns from your points of views. The more issues
discussed, the more informed our decision will be.

If you prefer posting on Meta, please comment / suggest on the relevant
talk pages:
- The Board members start and end terms

- Appointing someone to the vacant appointed seat

- Onboarding for new members


And (just in case) please understand that all mentioned above is my
understanding of how things stand and my conclusions on how to move forward
better, based on things I heard from the BGC members and other people I had
talks with. It does not represent the position the BGC is going to
recommend, or the Board will approve. So I would welcome negative and
positive comments equally well.

[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-03-16/Op-ed

Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv

*NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
advance!*


On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 1:38 AM, Pete Forsyth  wrote:

> In case my blanket "I disagree" left doubt, let me state very clearly --
> I'm not seeking anybody's