On Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 5:03 AM Chris Keating <chriskeatingw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My concern over this specific instance is prompted by several things: Thanks for laying out these concerns very clearly, Chris! I'll reiterate that, above all, my own biggest concern here is that governance standards of the movement should evolve together, and it's highly problematic if WMF is seen as holding itself to a different standard than the organizations it works with. None of my comments are intended to diminish that concern. In terms of the specifics, within the current WMF policy which does not yet include a waiting period, I feel that Amanda's statement [1] addressed some of these points reasonably. Taking the statement at face value, the key points to me are: - the process began with staff identifying specific needs, not with a desire to create a role for a trustee; - everyone involved sought to navigate any real or perceived COI in line with WMF's policies, and Maria has resigned as trustee before taking on a paid role; - the Board discussed the matter both through relevant committees and in Executive Session without Maria present. The contract itself is framed as temporary and presumably bound to a well-defined Statement of Work. The distinction matters because an organization's hiring processes for temporary contract roles may be legitimately less involved than for permanent staff hires. This is _not_ an argument against waiting periods for such contracts. I can see the merit of pushing an organization to look beyond its walls for any remunerated role, at least by default, and I can see why governance experts have recommended as much in discussions with affiliates. If I was part of an affiliate, I would be pissed if I had been told to implement such a policy (possibly in a manner tied to future funding), only to learn that WMF has never done the same. But I also don't think what happened here should be overstated. Organizations that want to hand out sinecures don't announce it on public mailing lists in the form of high-visibility, high-stakes contracts. I believe that the contract should proceed on its merits, and the failure by WMF to adhere to standards that affiliates have implemented is a separate matter. YMMV. I won't be able to participate much more in this thread, so please take that for what it's worth from an oldtimer with a single digit edit count this year. :) Regardless of whether the contract still proceeds, I would encourage WMF to share the actual Statement of Work and other non-sensitive contract parameters (duration; hours if specified). These are the kinds of parameters that would typically be included in a public RfP. Warmly, Erik [1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/GOCGXFUNK4AEMD4RBKN3EHUGQXGLJAFA/ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/HHT657HYJEO6NQCZNHGP3G5ZXF743WS2/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
