Hello Anthony,in my opinion, the board should not discuss individual projects, at least when I was on the board we decided not to. The board looks at policies that are more general and global. The resolutions that the board issued, which do impact the projects, are (or at least were) always formulated in a way that it applies to all projects. And they always only state the principle, and let the individual projects room to implement the principles into their own policies.
That said. Naturally every single board member bring their own experience, and in discussions we did use our individual experiences to explain our position. But when we formulated a resolution or made a decision we always tried to avoid to set up a principle or a decision on one project.
There is no clear boundary for COI, as someone else had already said. Everyone of us has our own personal red lines. I am not someone who would comment other people's red line. Actually generally I tend to accept the fact that other people have a different red line.
I would like to give you an example to show you my red line: Back in 2009 when we were working on the strategic planning I decided to not be member of the workshop that deal with China, instead of that I took part in the movement roles workshop. And I didn't take part on the discussion when it came to the decision if China should be a hot spot or now. The reason for that is exactly because as a board member I may be put a special emphasis on the topic China, and there is potentially a bias of my opinion which may lead the Foundation do a wrong decision (in that case it may mean waste a few tens of thousands of dollars). Naturally there were community members who were not happy with this. And there were some critics when the board decided in favor of India, Africa and Middle East. I was quite confident that there were many people who can better examing China than me, and looking back, it was a right decision.
Generally speaking, my principle is if there is a possible COI then avoid it. Defending a COI suspect (even if it is wrong) costs more energy than avoid get into that situation.
Beside of that, you also need to think that the best involved and engaged trustee may also have a single point of view, which may differ with the rest of that community. I know that in many things other zh-wk community member have a different opinion than me.
Greetings Ting Am 04/12/2016 um 01:30 PM schrieb Anthony Cole:
Hi Ting. You say, "...a board member should not foster his or her own pet projects." It's just one vote out of ten (normally). If they can't persuade their colleagues, the motion won't pass. In the case of community-selected trustees, they were put there by people who know their enthusiasms and expect them to do what they can to allow those initiatives to flourish, and who trust them not to do that at the expense of the overall shared mission. Shouldn't a discussion affecting an initiative include the very trustee who is (likely) the best informed and best placed to explain things to the other trustees? Anthony Cole On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 7:09 PM, Ting Chen <wing.phil...@gmx.de> wrote:Hello Anthony, in my opinion a board member should not foster his or her own pet projects. The WMF board members are leading a global movement. When everyone of them are fosting their own pet projects other projects may suffer. The board members should be beyond the single projects and give directions, like do more for the small projects, instead of single out the Swahili Wikipedia (just as an example). This does not mean that the board members should not continue their involvement in the projects, but then as community members, not having more power or say than other community members. Greetings Ting Am 04/12/2016 um 01:03 PM schrieb Anthony Cole:Ugh. Sorry. I mean: should involvement in and advocacy for a particular movement initiative disqualify one from voting on motions related to that initiative? Anthony Cole On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 6:55 PM, Anthony Cole <ahcole...@gmail.com> wrote: jytdog, regarding:"Going forward, there should be a) a clear disclosure of relevant outside interests and b) a pre-agreed COI management plan where those interests conflict with a Trustee's obligations, before Trustees formally step into the role." When you say "relevant outside interests" what do you mean? I'd love to hear Denny's thoughts on this. Also, Denny, I'm interested to hear you were concerned about a conflict of interest with Wikidata. I'm just now rethinking the question of internal conflicts of interest. Are they necessarily a bad thing? You were elected by a community who, I think, expected you to create an environment where Wikidata could flourish. Is it a bad thing to have advocates for movement initiatives on the board? Anthony Cole On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 5:07 PM, Anthony Cole <ahcole...@gmail.com> wrote: Good points worth repeating, though, jytdog.We're learning as we go here. COI is notoriously difficult to anticipate and manage. None of us, that I'm aware of, thought about - or at least discussed - the implications of his Google role when he ran for the board, and when it became too onerous to manage, Denny had the wisdom to step away. He's an enormous asset to this movement; as I said, we're lucky to have him, and I'm very grateful for all he's contributed. Anthony Cole On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 4:44 PM, jytdog <jyt...@gmail.com> wrote: This is kind of frustrating. Lila (speaking for the board) in her "Whywe changed < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lila_Tretikov%27s_statement_on_Why_we%27ve_changed"message, identified falling page views (creating a threat of falling donation revenue) caused by folks like Google repurposing our content as an "existential challenge". I am not sure I agree with that, but the WMF Board and the former ED said that. (Jimmy confirmed that on his Talk page, too) The key thing about Denny's COI issues as they unfolded, is that he was surprised and frustrated about the problems managing his COI ended up causing - so much so that he quit. That stuff actually happened. Debating what his COI was or whether it mattered is really beside the point... and all murky because whatever management plan was worked out - whatever areas actually were identified as problematic - we do not know, as that plan wasn't made public. Going forward, there should be a) a clear disclosure of relevant outside interests and b) a pre-agreed COI management plan where those interests conflict with a Trustee's obligations, before Trustees formally step into the role. What happened with Denny doesn't have to happen again. That seems to be the key issue looking forward. I'm repeating myself, and will stop now. On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 2:28 AM, Anthony Cole <ahcole...@gmail.com> wrote: I agree with all of that, MZ. As to your questions:"Shouldn't we be applauding Google and others for helping us share our knowledge with the world?" Yes. "What size do you think the Wikimedia Foundation should be in terms of yearly budget and number of full-time employees? How much bigger or smallershouldthe Wikimedia Foundation be than other Wikimedia chapters?" It depends on what we want them to do. "...are you sure that we're all agreed that this [Google impacting Wikipedia's page views and the ability to raise funds and recruit new volunteers]isproblematic?" I'm less concerned than many, and I'm sure others are unconcerned. "If Google causes page views to go down and our sites are directly hit less frequently, that actually saves us money, doesn't it?" If our page views drop by 50% and this halves our fundraisingcapacity, Idoubt that would be offset by the saved hosting costs. But I'm noexpert onthese things. Anthony Cole On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 11:46 AM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote: Anthony Cole wrote:Google's "info boxes" and their answers at the top of their results,we're all agreed now, I think, are impacting Wikipedia's page views and,consequently, our ability to raise funds and recruit new volunteers.Google and others have a direct interest in their data beingaccurate and reliable. We already see that Google has a "report a correction" feature for some of its services. It's in both Wikimedia's interest and re-users' interest for the underlying data source to be update-to-date and correct. Our mission is to spread free educational content to the world and we makeour data available for re-use for this purpose. Shouldn't we beapplaudingGoogle and others for helping us share our knowledge with the world? As far as threats to direct-to-user fund-raising go, I'd put organizational instability ahead of Google at the moment. TheWikimedia Foundation has repeatedly been in the news lately for ongoing management issues, both in its executive team and in its board of trustees.What size do you think the Wikimedia Foundation should be in terms of yearly budget and number of full-time employees? How much bigger or smaller should the Wikimedia Foundation be than other Wikimediachapters? Even if we accepted your premise that Google was impacting Wikipedia's page views and the ability to raise funds and recruit new volunteers(citations needed, to be sure), are you sure that we're all agreedthat this is problematic? If others re-using our content has a side effectof reducing donations to Wikimedia Foundation Inc., donations whichare received through questionable and increasingly obnoxious on-siteadvertisements, you will not find universal agreement that this donor reduction would be terrible. As others have argued previously, smalland recurring donations are a means of providing accountability for theentities entrusted with these monetary donations. If potentialdonors no longer trust the Wikimedia Foundation to manage and distribute thismoney, no longer donating financially is practical and wise. If Google causes page views to go down and our sites are directly hitlessfrequently, that actually saves us money, doesn't it? We'retheoretically then off-loading some of our hosting costs to Google, Facebook, andothers who are downloading and re-uploading our data to the Web,exactly as we mandated that anyone be able to do. With multiple copies of the dataon the Web, we're better ensuring that the content lives on inperpetuity.MZMcBride _______________________________________________ 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>_______________________________________________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>_______________________________________________ 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>_______________________________________________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>_______________________________________________ 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>_______________________________________________ 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>
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