Hi all, On 11 Feb 2014, at 17:58, Lodewijk <lodew...@effeietsanders.org> wrote:
> 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 want to +1 on everything that Lodewijk says here. The WMF board has done a really bad job here with involving its stakeholders. Both of these decisions should really have been prefaced with online discussion with the community, and also in-person discussion at the Wikimedia Conference in a couple of months time. Additionally, these two decisions relate specifically to topics that the WMF board has committees for - as such, ideally it should have asked the committees for clear recommendations about what could be done in both of these issues. That none of these took place is very disappointing. > 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. I share that hope. Thanks, Mike (As per Lodewijk, this is sent in my personal capacity, although I am a member of the FDC.) _______________________________________________ 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>
