Hi I think we are all jumping ahead about the committee's status first of all. It's mandate was never to make such broad changes. If you would read the talk page on meta from 2010 on this issue, there are comments there from me and others where the envisioned goal of this committee was to facilitate the jury and develop expertise for wikimania, no one thought it was going to change the jury process. This is a huge leap that was made by broadening the mandate and most people here are accepting it, as an established fact - It is not.
On Sun, Oct 4, 2015, Florence Devouard <anthe...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > There are roughly three components on the Wikimania committee. > One component is WMF staff. > One component is former and future Wikimania organizers. > One component is community members. > Those components aren't that distinguishable. If ellie was the only liaison for WMF on the committee acting in a passive capacity, it would be one thing. But someone like James, actually fits in to all 3 roles. It's his position as chair that also complicates the situation. > WMF staff does not have the same obligations and standards than the other > members. > > The rather unique situation of this committee is that... whilst it should > include much community input... for most years (not all), Wikimania is > actually mostly funded by WMF and beyond funding, some WMF staff put quite > a bit of work in it. To say it bluntly, most of the time, without WMF > input, Wikimania would simply not happen. This is no criticism to local > teams (without them, Wikimania would not occur either), but a simple > statement. WMF is a key stakeholder. What is the consequence of that from a > committee member perspective ? > > In my opinion, the consequence to that is that community members on the > committee do not feel that they "own" this committee. It "does" feel like > being invited on a Wikimedia Foundation committee. And as such, it feels > like a sort of special attention/listening should be given to WMF staff > members on that committee. And when things go ashtray... we hesitate being > bold. It is not about forgetting. > I understand WMF being a key stakeholder. But I'd differ here about who feels a sense of ownership. I really have the opinion that James is over reaching. He used to start with a call for jury, run the process year after year, then formed this committee, of which he is the chair, and now wants to remove the jury process all together for a list of places he would like wikimania to happen. I would also venture to guess that the board and Lila, are probably the least involved in these decisions about where Wikimania should happen for the next 5 years. > Now, beside head rolling... (uh, ouch :)) what do you suggest to fix that ? > I never suggested head rolling. To be absolutely blunt, I think James should stand down from his own capacity and let someone else take over the process and committee. Or give the community the option to choose which way it prefers. On Sun, Oct 4, 2015, Pavel Richter <m...@pavelrichter.de> wrote: > > > So, what happened? The Wikimania committee came to the conclusion that the > current process to select the next Wikimania host is broken (and I think > the committee was right about that). So something needed to happen - and > the committee did something that we > see > not often enough in Wikimedia-land: *they made a decision*. > A decision they were tasked to take: Think and decide on the next > Wikimania host, and on the process to find one. Nobody ever said that their > job was only to execute a set of old guidlines and processes (which, I > guess, were never "community approved" but rather were around just for a > long, long time). > Those are some pretty broad leaps Pavel. They were never tasked to take that decision. They came to a conclusion that the process is broken, they thought to do away with the process, they picked a winner, and set about corresponding with them, without telling anyone. Then, developed an entire roadmap of where they want to see Wikimania next for the near foreseeable future. All of this was never tasked to them in the first place. This committee isn't "community approved", their mandate isn't community approved. Its members weren't elected, in fact, I don't know why and how these people got on this committee, or how long they will be in-charge - because someone certainly seems to think they are in-charge. Maybe I missed a call or notification asking to join or approve or comment as to who should be on this committee. Regards Theo _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
