Thanks for this honest critical feedback Lodewijk. It is refreshing to have a straight-forward statement. Most emails from established members of our community being critical about the WMF board or staff seem to feel they need to wrap anything negative in so much cotton wool and glib praise, that it looses any effect.
It would be great for a WMF to respond to the failures your email identifies without writing about issues or successes that were not mentioned, and without garnishing with lengthy caveats or tangents. Fae On 11 February 2014 17:58, Lodewijk <lodew...@effeietsanders.org> wrote: > Hi, > > I'm very sorry about these decisions. Not only because I disagree with them > on the content (although there are one or two aspects I can live with) and > because I think this is very bad for the volunteers, but also because the > board returned to a mode where they make decisions without involving the > stakeholders properly. The Affiliations Committee will probably come with a > more elaborate (and perhaps nuanced) reply as a committee later, but after > this email from Jan-Bart, I feel the need to emphasize that the Affiliation > Committee was not consulted by the board on this topic - despite the > suggestions being made now. Affcom was consulted on a different (but > related) proposal by a staff member, with very different arguments from > those that the board used in their discussion. In my feeling the board is > painting an unjust and unfair picture of the consultation that took place. > > I'm strongly disappointed in /all/ board members for not consulting with > the stakeholders (Affcom, FDC, the existing affiliated, the candidate > affiliates and of course the community at large) on these strategy changing > decisions. From the votes it is clear that these decisions were of course > not unanimous, but the sole fact that a decision was taken at all without > proper consultation (in favor or not) strikes me as almost offensive > towards the volunteers involved. I feel this as a slap in the face and the > board becomes an unreliable body making unpredictable course changes > without allowing stakeholders to influence those. > > I hope that the board will return on this decision, and take it again after > a proper consultation. But even more so, I hope that this situation will > not repeat itself. I have brought this up before on the topic of bylaw > changes, but similar arguments are of course valid here. > > Lodewijk Gelauff > (While a member of the Affiliations Committee - I write this email entirely > in a personal capacity) -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Personal and confidential, please do not circulate or re-quote. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
