2016-03-02 22:56 GMT-08:00 Chris Sherlock <chris.sherloc...@gmail.com>:
> Let’s have the Board meetings be recorded. If they cannot be recorded, > then I’d like the WMF to improve their meeting minutes. Jimmy made a couple of suggestions earlier [1], including to publish all presentations given to the Board and to have a trusted community observer. To discuss which practices to adopt, it's worth first looking at the existing Board manual, which is a remarkably detailed document that goes into many of these issues including the exact process for minutes publication, what types of information is captured in minutes, and so on. [2] When it comes to presentations, the manual primarily refers to exceptions such as Legal presentations and documents "intended for presentation". I would recommend clarifying the standards under which such decisions are made, perhaps in the manual itself, and indeed publishing presentations going forward. For instance, I think one can make reasonable arguments either way when it comes to revenue related presentations, but there should be a general approach. Personally I would recommend transparency for those, as well, with confidential business income and similar data being omitted if necessary. "Competitive analysis" and the like is generally not the kind of thing that WMF is good at doing secretly, and indeed many of its risk analyses have been made public. Certainly all strategy presentations should be public. As for minutes, again, it seems to me a matter of first clarifying, possibly in the Board manual, what level of detail is appropriate. It seems to me that the Board is adhering to a relatively risk-averse, conservative approach right now, whereas WMF staff (which make many risky and potentially sensitive decisions on a day-to-day basis) capture significantly more individual-level detail in quarterly review minutes without apparent ill effect. I understand the concern about "speaking freely", but I personally think this is overstated in many cases. The Board, being a governance body, _will_ often talk about sensitive issues that cannot be captured in detail, such as personnel, management and legal matters. But that doesn't mean it cannot adhere to a greater level of detail in capturing strategy conversations, for example. Erik [1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-February/082719.html [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook _______________________________________________ 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>
