Anne,
On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 2:15 AM, Risker <risker...@gmail.com> wrote: > > They don't mean the same thing at all. But would you really dispute the > > statement that WMF leaders should be both transparent AND honest? > > > > Transparency is a fundamental WMF value. > > > > Nobody here is talking about vendor agreements; at least I am not. I have > > no problem whatsoever with your scenario. If the WMF enters into an > > umbrella agreement or business deal with Google or whoever, then that is > > something the community should know. If the WMF gets computer hardware > at a > > preferential rate, absolutely no one is interested in that. > > > > > Because, Andreas, I do not want the Wikimedia Foundation to commit > suicide. On what basis do you say, with complete confidence, that the > basis of the issue is NOT a contract, or a legal agreement, or a human > resources issue - all of which will likely require some degree of > non-transparency? Where did I say that? We were discussing a very specific thing: that the board was split, and not unanimous, about whether Lila should stay on, and that the board chair claimed otherwise in his communication with staff. You seem to be saying that if the board is split on the matter, that is a human resources issue and justifies telling staff that the board is unanimous. I don't follow that reasoning. > For example - if the focus of all this excitement is a > human resources issue, there are very, very strict regulations about what > can and cannot be public. It's why there is an "executive session" at > every board meeting - because human resource issues involving identifiable > persons MUST not be publicly discussed. > If there are such issues, then it's still possible to be transparent about what you can't be transparent about (as Todd's post just arriving in my in-box points out as well). > I cannot for the life of me imagine what Google sells that the WMF would be > interested in buying, so I'm finding your example a bit weird. Anne, I have mentioned several times in the past few days here on this list Sue Gardner's 2008 email suggesting that the WMF enter into an "umbrella relationship/agreement" or "business deal" with Google. In case you missed it, here is the link again: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/sandberg.pdf Scroll to the very end of the document to see the email in question. I am still interested in learning what the results of that effort were. > And > unfortunately, there are indeed enough people around here who are so > determined to have total transparency that they *would* believe that > failure to publicly report that the WMF had received computer hardware at a > preferential rate was *failing to be transparent.* > Perhaps, though I would not count myself among them. Though I have to say, Richard Ames actually makes a good point in the thread he started on this topic. So yes, I do dispute that WMF leaders must always be both transparent and > honest. Honest, I'll go for - although as we're pretty clearly seeing in > this situation, there's a pretty wide divergence between what different > leaders consider honesty. But not transparent. I don't want them > reporting personal human resources issues or other legally confidential > issues publicly - if for no other reason than they'll be slapped with > lawsuits that would be a terrible, terrible waste of our donor's money. > I don't want that either. If you know something about this whole affair that I don't know, and that motivates your writing in this manner, fine; but I'm still more likely to agree with Todd. Andreas _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
