Thank you Nat, Thank you for pushing up the timeline a bit on having this conversation - I agree that it's probably better not to stretch the conversation too much, before an updated process is decided upon.
Will you invite any other people to present additional information to the board? I think we all would like the board to be as fully informed as possible about this topic, and I couldn't reasonably expect all board members to read all discussions about this topic. I could for example imagine that you invite the framers of the open letter to provide a short presentation as well. This would be in acknowledgement that it's a very complex task for any team to collect data and insights that are contrary to what they saw as their instructions for several years. As I also referred to in my 'asymmetry of power' comment in response to the executive statement on meta earlier, I believe this is core to many objections when highly disputed decisions are being made by the board: the voice of the part of the community that strongly feels about and disagrees with the proposal, is not in the room to make their case. I know there are some attempts being made in the strategy process to address this, but perhaps in the same spirit, the board could experiment a little with being more inclusive of such voices - especially now that is technically trivial as the meetings are all online anyway. Warmly, Lodewijk On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 4:27 PM Nataliia Tymkiv <ntym...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Dear all, > > I want to share with you the next steps of the Wikimedia Foundation Board > of Trustees about the Brand Project. > > Originally the Board meeting dedicated to the brand project was supposed to > happen no earlier than October. The expected outcome from the project were > the recommendations on what the rebranding should look like - from changing > fonts/logos to renaming. And if there is going to be a renaming - to what. > Of course, the Board’s role is not in approving a change in fonts, but if a > recommendation to rename was to be made - the Board’s role would have been > to make a decision on that recommendation. The timeline has now been > changed, and the renaming part of rebranding will be discussed in our > August meeting. > > Moreover, the Board will meet in early July to receive a briefing about the > project and talk about the process between June 2018 - June 2020. The > consolidated materials on what the brand project team has been working on > for a while now will be presented to the Board, and these materials are > also going to be posted publicly. The more-strategic conversation is > planned for the August meeting. Time to prepare the materials is needed, > and the ongoing conversations need to be summarised, so the Board can have > an in-depth discussion about this, before making any kind of decision. > > We would like to continue with the survey [1] - we have discussed the > possibility of technical changes to the survey with an additional option > like “no renaming is needed” (not the exact words, mind you), but with more > than 700 respondents it is not methodologically sound to change the survey > now. Staff have confirmed to the Board that responses to the survey will > not be calculated as support for a change. The survey was only designed to > collect feedback on the possible renaming options, not as a yes/no vote on > whether to adopt them. > > Thus the timeline on rebranding for the next 6-7 weeks is as follows: > > * Early July - special Board meeting with the Brand project team to review > and discuss the process so far, and for the Board members to receive the > briefing on discussions happening; > > * July - consolidated materials prepared for the July meeting will be > posted publicly after the meeting; > > * August 5th - the Board meeting on renaming part of the rebranding, not > about the process. The Board will make the decision about whether to stop, > pause, or continue the work on this, within the framework of a discussion > on strategic goals, tensions and tradeoffs, and potential next steps. > > * August (after the meeting) - the Board statement on the next steps about > the Brand project. > > I also want to acknowledge receiving the Community open letter on renaming > [2] that was posted this week. Thank you for this statement on the position > of those of you who signed. I know there are other perspectives, and that > some would agree with it who have not signed it, and that there are also > some who would not agree. We expect that the Board meetings and > communication after them will address the concerns raised in the letter. > > Stay safe, > antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv > Acting Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees > > [1] https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9G2dN7P0T7gPqpD > > [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_open_letter_on_renaming > > > *NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working > hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You > should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in > advance!* > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > 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 and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l 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>
