2016-02-28 15:53 GMT+01:00 Brion Vibber <bvib...@wikimedia.org>: > Some members of the WMF Board of Trustees are giving strong signals (like, > saying it outright) that the BoT can't fully take on the role of movement > leadership or community representation. Not because they think it shouldn't > happen, but because structurally and legally and practically the board of > Wikimedia Foundation Inc has different roles to fill. >
Thanks Brion for starting this conversation. "Our community is our biggest asset" do read the values.[1] How do you reconcile the statement of some board members with this stated value? > I think we should consider what roles and structures we *do* want as > members of the Wikimedia movement community. > The saying is "structure follows strategy". One goal, or strategy can be "As a movement we want healthy thriving communities". A) One way to achieve that could be to delegate the task explicitly to each individual community and help the members of that community to (self)organize. For example to use securepoll to (s)elect a number of people by active editors to accept certain representative roles, for example in two way communication between foundation and community about technology changes, but also to oversee processes to recruit new editors and onboard them. I imagine a (s)election process like the (s)election of community (s)elected BoT members, however with voters restricted to editors who are active in that community (that is per project wiki of which there are 900). B) Another way would be to use securepoll to (s)elect a number of people in a specific country by active editors in that country to accept certain representative roles, for example in two way communication between foundation and community about technology changes, but also to oversee processes to recruit new editors and onboard them. I imagine a (s)election process like the (s)election of community (s)elected BoT members, however with voters restricted to editors who are active in that country based on geo-ip. Maybe some countries are so big, that it would be wiser to do this at state level. > This probably means we should think about "umbrella" structures to > coordinate and represent and look forward. > The failed attempts to WCA come to mind. That didn't work. An association of active editors legally separate from the WMF might be conceivable. Such an assocation could be compartementalized by A) and B). The B) structures might merge with existing chapters, I can imagine. (S)election of community members for the BoT of the WMF could shift to the association. That might end up outsourcing community support by the WMF to the association, something Dariusz opposes ;) Regards, Ad Huikeshoven [1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values#Our_community_is_our_biggest_asset _______________________________________________ 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>
