> On 3 Mar 2016, at 5:31 PM, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Circling back to a subject that I've mentioned before, I favor having > meetings of the WMF Board be open and recorded by default, with limited > exceptions for discussions of legally privileged information and other > subjects for which there is a strong reason that deliberations should > remain private. Note that "wiki-political sensitivity" is not one of those > reasons. > > I hope that recent events illustrate that it may be better to be > transparent from the beginning than try to suppress information that > eventually leaks out or emerges after a lengthy series of questions. > > The WMF Board minutes tend to be brief, and the Board's deliberations are > rarely public. This is disappointing for an organization in the open source > movement. WMF should be an exemplar of transparent and open governance. > > To illustrate the kind of detail that can be omitted from Board minutes and > the temptation to omit information for questionable reasons, I suggest this > clip from the British satire "Yes, Minister", in which two civil servants > discuss the Prime Minister's wish to suppress the publication of a chapter > of a book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNKjShmHw7s > > I hope that, as the WMF Board moves forward, it transforms into a model of > transparency and openness; less "Yes, Minister" and paralysis and > resistance to the community, and more transparency and vigor in public > service. Having WMF Board meetings be open and recorded by default would be > a wonderful step in aligning the Board with the value of transparency. > > Pine
I cannot be more supportive of this proposal. Let’s have the Board meetings be recorded. If they cannot be recorded, then I’d like the WMF to improve their meeting minutes. I was thinking that minutes need to be recorded by an appointed scribe. It should show what time the meeting started, and what time it officially finished. I’d like to see times when issues were discussed, and a scribe could do this quite effectively. It would also show us if something was discussed that *wasn’t* noted in the minutes. I would also like Board members to document actions they have taken on behalf of the WMF outside of meetings. Besides being a statutory requirement, it’s a good idea and helps with transparency. Of course, the best solution would be Pine’s proposal of recording meetings and releasing these to the general public. Chris _______________________________________________ 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>
