On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 10:00 AM, Risker <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > "Responsible for reviewing the minutes". This is a lovely ideal. Can we > now be realistic? What do we really expect that "observer" to do? Will > they have input in to what the minutes finally say? Do they have approval > authority (i.e., do they get to vote on the acceptance of the minutes)? > I'm not opposed to community members observing board meetings - I suspect > many people will find them to be unexpectedly boring, with less substantive > discussion than many would expect - but the objective should be a lot more > clear. What about if they genuinely believe that the minutes (which most > of us would recognize as having been written using a template) don't > reflect or emphasize what the observer thinks were the key issues? Do they > get to put forward publicly their own version of what happened or what they > observed? Are they going to be permitted to observe the "executive > session", where even the WMF staff are out of the room? I am fine with the > general concept, but I don't think either the board or the community has > really thought through the entire process. We should get it pretty much > nailed down before it is implemented. > > Minute-taking is a skill - just as is writing a featured article or > creating a featured image. Those who think it's an easy task that should be > able to be done practically after the meeting is over tend to have no real > experience with writing and managing minutes at the international > non-profit board level and may not fully understand why it it is important > that they are correct before they're published. Publicly presenting an > early, uncorrected draft will lead to nothing but tears, but there are 9 > board members (plus individual presenters) who have to read, correct and > approve [sections of] the minutes. The WMF Board is not and should not be > the most important person in the lives of any of our board members. > >
hi Anne, I appreciate your criticism, it definitely helps to shoot down ideas early, before they can mature ;) What I'm getting at is trying to find a sensible form of addressing the community's concerns without making the whole Board meetings public (I don't think it is impossible, I basically think that it would entirely change the dynamics of the meetings - there would be an incentive for the community-elected members to speak up to gain political support, for example; this idea calls for just as much shredding apart as the "observer" one). The observer I have in mind would not be responsible for taking the minutes (as you've pointed out, it is a skill), but reviewing them. Anyhow, it is just an ad-hoc idea that I think could be refined, if it was perceived as addressing the problem of the Board meetings being overly cryptic and secretive for the general public. dj _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
