Mailing List Archive

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Le 22/02/16 11:03, George Herbert a écrit :
>
> I have been letting Lila's mail stew in my brain for a little while, and I am going to respond now having had time to think it over.
>
> I apologize in advance for the length. There are three main sections to my analysis and argument, and then some concluding points and implications.
>
>
> First - the good. I believe most here should agree that the Wikipedia movement, communities, projects all have had and have today major challenges. An immense good is done by what we have all communally built, but there are things wrong we haven't fixed.
>
> Lila's ED statement lays out a subset of the total problems, effectively briefly explains her reasoning on why they are problematic, and forms a vision statement for engaging with fixing them. It's a vision statement and a call to action, and contains the kind of leadership we need.
>
> One can quibble about the set of problems to focus on or priorities, long and short term goals. I am sure people will. But the Foundation needs a leadership vision like this. It can evolve over time, but we should think in these terms.
>
>
> Second - I want to focus now on this section to explain what I see as having gone wrong.
>
> Quoting Lila:
>
>> In practice this means I demanded that we set standards for staff
>> communication with our community to be professional and respectful. It
>> meant transitioning people, shutting down pet projects, promoting some but
>> not others, demanding goals and results to get funding. This level of
>> change is necessary to set up our organization to address the challenges of
>> the next decade.
>>
>>
>> All of this means stepping away from our comfort zones to create capacity
>> for building programs and technologies that will support us in the future.
>> It is a demanding and difficult task to perform an organizational change at
>> this scale and speed.
>
>
> For context:
>
> I am an IT industry technical consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area with well over 20 years experience and 18 of those consulting. I have literally seen the insides of 100 organizations big and small.
>
> Many of those organizations were broken or failing, and needed serious reform to succeed. I've seen and participated in a number of restructurings, including helping plan some. These things are sometimes necessary.
>
> One phrase I see used quite often is "sometimes we need to break a few eggs." For those who are not native american english speakers, this is referring to the need to move beyond shifting things around into breaking things apart, letting people go who may not fit in the new plan, stopping things outright, etc. The eggs - people, projects, structures, policies, assumptions - need to partly go away - be broken - in order to reform.
>
> Lila's vision here clearly calls the change campaign out as having explicitly intended to break eggs.
>
> It further suggests strongly that this was the Board of Trustees' intention in hiring her, and that they agreed with breaking those eggs.
>
> These types of reforms are at times necessary. I do not know from the outside whether they were necessary for successful at the WMF, but for now I agree this may well have been necessary and proper. Some of those affected may disagree; I don't seek to diminish that discussion but for now am putting it aside.
>
> We come now to what I think went wrong with this change that I agree may have needed to happen.
>
> Broken eggs type major organizational changes are launched with varying degrees of planning and vision and coordination beforehand. I have seen such launched, in process, or the aftereffects across the range of initial planning and communications from none at all at one extreme to clearly envisioned, planned, communicated, and executed at the other.
>
> Lila here and now communicated a clear vision for what was intended and why, and the intention to "break eggs" to do it. I had not previously seen anything like this, or even a good suggestion of this. Nobody I know of in the community seems to have seen or guessed at it. From the comments we are seeing, a lot of current and ex Foundation staff do not seem to have seen it. Nobody has yet admitted they had seen it, after Lila's post.
>
> I don't know how well it was understood before/during by more senior staff / leadership staff, the Board, or laid out this clearly and coherently in Lila's head.
>
> There are undoubtedly a range of answers to those questions depending on who you ask and what time period we ask about.
>
> I will bound the extremes of credible answers with "clearly articulated and communicated at high levels, including commitment to change by breaking eggs", or at the other extreme "this was not clearly envisioned or articulated or communicated at high levels beforehand."
>
> I want to emphasize this: Either the senior leadership launched a major broken eggs extent reform without communicating what was happening to major community and staff stakeholders on purpose, or by accident, or somewhere in between with mixed consequences of both.
>
> I have seen these happen in industry and noncommercial organizations. The lack of communications to stakeholders has not necessarily made reforms fail, though it has rarely helped. If you care about success of the changes, what happened is not best practice, but not a sign in and of itself of failure.
>
> In terms of judging success, while there are cracks all over, I don't see that the reform has failed or is likely to. For the sake of the argument I am assuming it will succeed, and moving on.
>
>
> Third - and finally - I want to explain why I think this is now evidently a disaster for the overall Wikimedia movement as a whole.
>
> Lila said this in part:
>> In practice this means I demanded that we set standards for staff
>> communication with our community to be professional and respectful.
>
> I agree with this. It's a good statement. If's arguable we should hold all staff and the Board to it.
>
> That said, I have a hard time reconciling that statement with having launched a major broken eggs extent reform without communicating what was happening to major community and staff stakeholders either on purpose or by accident. There was, on purpose or by accident (or varying degrees of both) a fundamental gap in professionalism and respect in communicating the launch of the reform effort.
>
> Beyond that, the consequences of doing so are magnified by the nature of the Wikimedia movement. I have been trying to think of an example organization which would be more negatively affected by having done that. I haven't found one yet. The nature of the wide diverse community, tensions between the Community and Foundation, Community and Ops, and Engineering; ED and Staff; ED and Community; even the Community and Board. All of these relationships are necessary for the movement to succeed. All are fundamentally and deeply challenged by the nature of this gaffe.
>
>
> It would help untangle this situation to get the historical perspectives and intentions of everyone here. Board members (current and past), Lila, other senior leaders, I urge you to publicly lay out what you were thinking and trying to do early on and more recently.
>
> However, as far as I can see it regardless of which way those explanations go, the final implications are clear to me.
>
> I don't know that the movement as a whole can trust a Board or ED who would have either accidentally or on purpose launched this degree of changes in secret and without communicating. Other organizations whose leadership did this have better odds. THIS organization, as a whole, is now broken rather severely by how you executed the probably necessary and hopefully successful reform.
>
>
> To the Board:
>
> If the Board at the time knew and concurred - I think every board member involved needs to consider how this can possibly be reconciled with trust within the movement, and ultimately whether further service on the board is in the best interests of the movement or Foundation.
>
> If the Board did not understand the nature of the change, I think every board member needs to consider whether their ability to manage and provide guidance and oversight of major organizational changes is adequate for the needs of the organization now and in the future. And ultimately whether further service on the board is in the best interests of the movement or Foundation.
>
>
> To Lila:
>
> I assume good faith. I agree with your vision.
>
> I do not understand why this was not just made public prior to initiation of reforms, or once they started.
>
> I am concerned and skeptical that you can now lead the Foundation, in this wider Wikimedia movement, regardless of what that answer is.
>
> This pains me especially because of the quality and on-target focus of the vision you expressed. I am very sorry to come to this conclusion. But I don't know how you can lead here if you launched into breaking a bunch of THESE eggs in secret as opposed to openly, whether it was on purpose and preplanned or evolved into that without planning and communicating it through.
>
> It might well work at dot-com companies, but not I think here.
>
> I believe the ED position requires someone who would have known that.
>
> I am glad you posted that vision statement. It both provides a vision and template the movement and Foundation should move towards. I hope it is a successful legacy.


To reflect on the question "did the board know"... I think it did.

I would like to point you to :
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ALilaTretikov_%28WMF%29&oldid=9606543#Our_Future_and_the_role_of_the_Foundation

Quote : All of this is going to require change, change that might not be
acceptable to some of you. I hope that all of you will be a part of this
next step in our evolution. But I understand that if you decide to take
a wiki-break, that might be the way things have to be. Even so, you have
to let the Foundation do its work and allow us all to take that next
step when needed. I can only hope that your break is temporary, and that
you will return when the time is right.

Florence





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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Lila,

This is a pretty infuriating email, full of inaccuracies, FUD and
unnecessary platitudes. We're in need of answers and actions, not
essays.

After such a failed record as an ED, I would expect you to acknowledge
that we have indeed changed, but for the worst. Then, learn from your
mistakes and work on fixing them (possibly silently; I'd undrestand
that). I'm personally all for course-corrections and/or second chances.
As you probably know, I've been trying to be positive, calm and helpful
help during this mess -- this is one of my very few emails on the
subject of your performance.

What you did instead was to sent a community-wide email making it sound
like this was a carefully executed plan and the only reason people are
revolting is because they're either change-averse or bitter for not
getting a promotion. This is downright insulting.

Finally, with all of your references to "community", it also sounds to
me like like you're trying to gain some support from our community and
effectively stategically place the (almost unanimously) revolting staff
at odds with our community, in the hopes that you can get supporters and
salvage your position. This would be a pretty desperate and selfish
move. I hope I'm wrong.

Regards,
--
Faidon Liambotis
Principal Engineer, Technical Operations
Wikimedia Foundation

On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 04:22:07PM -0800, Lila Tretikov wrote:
> Why we’ve changed
>
>
> I want to address some of the many questions that are coming up in this
> forum. From the general to the very concrete, they all touch on the fact
> that many things about the WMF have been changing. We are in the thick of
> transformation, and you all have the right to know more about how and why
> this is occurring. This is not a statement of strategy, which will come out
> of the community consultation next week. This is the ED’s perspective only.
>
>
> After 15 years since the birth of Wikipedia, the WMF needs to rethink
> itself to ensure our editor work expands into the next decade. Recently we
> kicked-off some initiatives to this end, including aligning community
> support functions, focus on mobile and innovative technology, seeding the
> Wikimedia Endowment, re-organizing our internal structure, exploring
> partnerships and focusing on the most critical aspects of our mission:
> community and technology. We started this transformation, but as we move
> forward we are facing a crisis that is rooted in our choice of direction.
>
>
> The choice in front the WMF is that of our core identity. Our mission can
> be served in many ways, but we cannot do them all. We could either fully
> focus on building our content and educational programs. Or we can get great
> at technology as the force multiplier for our movement. I believe the the
> former belongs to our volunteers and affiliates and that the role of the
> WMF is in providing global support and coordination of this work. I believe
> in -- and the board hired me to -- focus on the latter. To transform our
> organization into a high-tech NGO, focused on the needs of our editors and
> readers and rapidly moving to update our aged technology to support those
> needs. To this end we have made many significant changes. But the challenge
> in front of us is hard to underestimate: technology moves faster than any
> other field and meeting expectations of editors and readers will require
> undistracted focus.
>
>
> What changed?
>
>
> When Jimmy started Wikipedia, the early editors took a century-old
> encyclopedia page and allowed anyone to create or edit its content. At the
> time when creating knowledge was still limited to the chosen few, openly
> collaborating online gave us power to create and update knowledge at a much
> faster rate than anyone else. This was our innovation.
>
>
> As we matured, we encountered two fundamental, existential challenges. One
> is of our own doing: driving away those who would otherwise join our
> mission through complex policies, confusing user experiences, and a caustic
> community culture. The other is external and is emerging from our own value
> of freely licensed content: Many companies copy our knowledge into their
> own databases and present it inside their interfaces. While this supports
> wider dissemination, it also separates our readers from our community.
> Wikipedia
> is more than the raw content, repurposed by anyone as they like. It is a
> platform for knowledge and learning, but if we don't meet the needs of
> users, we will lose them and ultimately fail in our mission.
>
>
> Meanwhile, in the last 15 years revolutionary changes have taken hold. The
> rate of knowledge creation around the world is unprecedented and is increasing
> exponentially <http://qpmf.com/the-book/welcome-to-hyper-innovation/>. User
> interfaces are becoming more adaptive to how users learn. This means we
> have a huge opportunity to accelerate human understanding. But to do so
> requires some significant change in technology and community interaction.
>
>
> So let’s begin with technology: Many at the WMF and in our community
> believe that we should not be a high-tech organization. I believe we
> should. With over half of our staff fully committed to delivering product
> and technology, it is already our primary vehicle for impacting our mission
> and our community. In fact we constantly see additional technology needs
> emerging from our Community department to help amplify theirs and our
> community work.
>
>
> What do we need to do in light of the changes I described above? We need to
> focus on increasing productivity of our editors and bringing more readers
> to Wikipedia (directly on mobile, and from 3rd party reusers back to our
> sites).
>
>
> When we started, the open knowledge on Wikipedia was a large piece of the
> internet. Today, we have an opportunity to be the door into the whole
> ecosystem of open knowledge by:
>
>
>
> -
>
> scaling knowledge (by building smart editing tools that structurally
> connect open sources)
> -
>
> expanding the entry point to knowledge (by improving our search portal)
>
>
> There are many ways to alleviate the manual burdens of compiling and
> maintaining knowledge currently taken on by our editing community, while
> quickly expanding new editing. We made significant strides this year with
> our first steps to leverage artificial intelligence
> <http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/30/artificial-intelligence-x-ray-specs/>
> to remove grunt work from editing. But that is just a start. Connecting
> sources through structured data would go much further and allow our editors
> to easily choose the best media for their article and for our readers to
> recieve content at their depth of understanding or language comprehension.
>
>
> Wikipedia is the trusted place where people learn. Early indicators show
> that if we choose to improve the search function more people will use our
> site. We are seeing early results in use of Wikipedia in our A/B testing of
> search
> <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/First_Portal_Test.pdf>
> , but we have a long way to go. We want people to come directly to our
> sites -- and be known as the destination for learning -- so that eventually
> we can bring our readers into our editing community. And without community
> support none of this will be remotely possible.
>
>
> Which brings me to the community. Over time the WMF has grown, with an
> opportunity of becoming a complementary, mutually empowering partner with
> the community. We need each other and we share one focus: humanity.
> Reaching and sharing with people across the world is our common goal.
>
>
> In the past year we managed -- for the first time since 2007 -- to finally
> stem the editor decline. But that will not be enough. We need to find ways
> to re-open and embrace new members instead of the hazing we conduct at
> least in some parts of the site today. We must treat each other with
> kindness and respect. Technology is not the main reasons for rampant new
> editor attrition. It is how we talk to each other that makes all the
> difference.
>
>
> Without tackling these issues we artificially limit our growth and
> scalability. And we will continue to reject those whose ideas are new or
> different, the most vulnerable members of our community. In this, the
> Gender Gap is the “canary in the coal mine”. Women are the first to leave
> contentious and aggressive environments and are less likely to remain when
> they encounter it. They are less likely to run in elections because of rude
> and aggressive treatment. Yet in editor surveys and in our latest strategy
> consultation, Gender Gap has been considered a low priority. I disagree.
>
>
> Over the past two years I have actively pushed funding to improve
> anti-harassment, child protection and safety programs; work in these areas
> is ongoing. We are actively exploring some tangible approaches that -- I
> hope -- will turn into concrete outcomes
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Harassment_workshop>. In the latest
> research this year the number of female editors shown some growth.
>
>
> What does this mean for the WMF?
>
>
> In the past 18 months -- and thanks to hard work of the people at the WMF
> and our community supporters -- we have made significant structural
> changes. We have organized around two core areas: technology and community.
> We have made changes with an eye on improving our relationships between the
> volunteer community, the chapters and the WMF, including the creation of
> structures that should vastly improve the WMF's responsiveness to
> volunteers. We began adopting best industry practices in the organization,
> such as setting and measuring goals and KPIs. We’ve given managers a lot of
> responsibilities and demanded results. We’ve asked for adjustment in
> attitude towards work, our responsibilities and professional relationships.
> We prioritised impact and performance so that we can provide more value to
> our communities and the world.
>
>
> This has not been easy.
>
>
> In practice this means I demanded that we set standards for staff
> communication with our community to be professional and respectful. It
> meant transitioning people, shutting down pet projects, promoting some but
> not others, demanding goals and results to get funding. This level of
> change is necessary to set up our organization to address the challenges of
> the next decade.
>
>
> All of this means stepping away from our comfort zones to create capacity
> for building programs and technologies that will support us in the future.
> It is a demanding and difficult task to perform an organizational change at
> this scale and speed.
>
>
> I believe that in order to successfully serve our community and humanity,
> the WMF has deliver best-of class technology and professional support for
> community. This will ensure we are delivering significant impact to
> volunteer editors and opening avenues for new types of contributions. This
> requires that we choose the route of technical excellence for the WMF with
> support and encouragement from our community partners. Without this
> empowerment, the WMF will not succeed.
>
>
> The world is not standing still. It will not wait for us to finish our
> internal battles and struggles. Time is our most precious commodity.
>
>
> Lila

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Dear Lila,

I woke up this morning and as usual I went for my WMF email with my coffee.

I woke up to read my ED implying that the employee discontent[1] was due
to, amongst other things:

> We’ve asked for adjustment in attitude towards work, our responsibilities and professional relationships.
> We prioritised impact and performance so that we can provide more value to our communities and the world.

Now, one easy way to read this, the most obvious one, is that the
attitude towards work of the WMF employees was somewhat not right or
unprofessional, and that we were lazy and not goal-driven.

I would find this inappropriate in an internal email, but you went to
state that in public, and I have to admit I find this is deeply
offending on a personal and professional level.

I restrained from expressing publicly any issues I might have
with your own performance; I would love you to not
spread covert allegations on my performace and professional attitude
(not specifically, but well, I'm part of the staff here right?).

For the first time in the two years since I joined the WMF I felt a
sour taste in my mouth for just sitting down to work.

Deeply sad,

Giuseppe
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-01-06/News_and_notes
"WMF Staff morale"
--
Giuseppe Lavagetto
Senior Technical Operations Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation

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[Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
On Monday, 22 February 2016, Faidon Liambotis <faidon@wikimedia.org
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','faidon@wikimedia.org');>> wrote:
>
> What you did instead was to sent a community-wide email making it sound
> like this was a carefully executed plan and the only reason people are
> revolting is because they're either change-averse or bitter for not
> getting a promotion. This is downright insulting.


It also slides over the fact that the people who have been leaving recently
are people who had been hired or promoted during Lila's tenure. This is
quite different from people leaving within the first months of a new
director's arrival.

The tricky thing is that the staff have been trying their best - because
they are professionals - to keep internal "office problems" hidden from
public view. They have not been advertising their frustrations on-wiki but
trying to express their concerns through private and official procedures.
This means that now we are at a stage where staff are OPENLY criticising
the leadership that can appear to the wider wikiverse like the first sign
of a problem and that they are being petty. But it is actually the end of a
long road, not the beginning.

Suffice to say - in an organisation where the staff are well know for their
commitment to the values of the movement, to be complaining publicly (and
not just one or two new people, all the senior people too - see the report
of the staff survey in The Signpost) means that this is not an
insignificant problem or concern only held by some troublemakers.


> Finally, with all of your references to "community", it also sounds to
> me like like you're trying to gain some support from our community and
> effectively stategically place the (almost unanimously) revolting staff
> at odds with our community, in the hopes that you can get supporters and
> salvage your position. This would be a pretty desperate and selfish
> move. I hope I'm wrong.
>

I too get the sense that this email as trying to claim a sense of
martyrdom. Of pointing to the staff and and saying that "they" are
unwilling to embrace change - particularly with regards to being a "high
tech organisation". This might be a more believable argument if it was not
for the tech department have been the most vocal in criticism. I don't
think anyone was implacably opposed to improvements in the way tech should
be managed - the smoothness of new rollouts and speed of development of new
products was famously poor. But that's quite different from the
silicon-valley mindset of paranoia about marketshare and product-secrecy.

As several people have said to me in the last week (referencing
an American-political aphorism) "it's not the crime, it's the coverup".





--
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Hi,

First of all thank you Lila for making such a clear statement on how you
see the movement. I would like to go to the basics.

I do agree with your vision of what we did 15 years ago and could agree
about the changing environment and that we need to constantly rethink
ourselves in this hyper-innovation era. I also believe that we
have a huge opportunity to accelerate human understanding, but I'm not sure
if I agree with your proposal of solution.

You say let’s begin with technology and I would say let's begin with the
people.

Our mission <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>doesn't talk about
tech. Tech is the tool to reach a goal. The tool is very very important,
but not the most.


I've always seen the WMF staff, BoT and ED as the "*concierge*" of the
Wikimedia projects. They have the "house keys", but they don't own it. We
need WMF-staff, BoT and ED to keep everything working, safe and clean, and
make, finnaly to make "community inner life easier", and most of the times
it happens. But lasts weeks life in the wikiverse is becoming weird (just
the common areas, projects are still ok).

I ask some of the concierges to put some order again in the neighborhood,
please. I need a lot of time and tranquility to keep wikiprojects ongoing,
editing Wikipedia takes a lot of time. ;)


Best





2016-02-22 15:13 GMT+01:00 Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt@gmail.com>:

> On Monday, 22 February 2016, Faidon Liambotis <faidon@wikimedia.org
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','faidon@wikimedia.org');>> wrote:
> >
> > What you did instead was to sent a community-wide email making it sound
> > like this was a carefully executed plan and the only reason people are
> > revolting is because they're either change-averse or bitter for not
> > getting a promotion. This is downright insulting.
>
>
> It also slides over the fact that the people who have been leaving recently
> are people who had been hired or promoted during Lila's tenure. This is
> quite different from people leaving within the first months of a new
> director's arrival.
>
> The tricky thing is that the staff have been trying their best - because
> they are professionals - to keep internal "office problems" hidden from
> public view. They have not been advertising their frustrations on-wiki but
> trying to express their concerns through private and official procedures.
> This means that now we are at a stage where staff are OPENLY criticising
> the leadership that can appear to the wider wikiverse like the first sign
> of a problem and that they are being petty. But it is actually the end of a
> long road, not the beginning.
>
> Suffice to say - in an organisation where the staff are well know for their
> commitment to the values of the movement, to be complaining publicly (and
> not just one or two new people, all the senior people too - see the report
> of the staff survey in The Signpost) means that this is not an
> insignificant problem or concern only held by some troublemakers.
>
>
> > Finally, with all of your references to "community", it also sounds to
> > me like like you're trying to gain some support from our community and
> > effectively stategically place the (almost unanimously) revolting staff
> > at odds with our community, in the hopes that you can get supporters and
> > salvage your position. This would be a pretty desperate and selfish
> > move. I hope I'm wrong.
> >
>
> I too get the sense that this email as trying to claim a sense of
> martyrdom. Of pointing to the staff and and saying that "they" are
> unwilling to embrace change - particularly with regards to being a "high
> tech organisation". This might be a more believable argument if it was not
> for the tech department have been the most vocal in criticism. I don't
> think anyone was implacably opposed to improvements in the way tech should
> be managed - the smoothness of new rollouts and speed of development of new
> products was famously poor. But that's quite different from the
> silicon-valley mindset of paranoia about marketshare and product-secrecy.
>
> As several people have said to me in the last week (referencing
> an American-political aphorism) "it's not the crime, it's the coverup".
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> wittylama.com
> Peace, love & metadata
> _______________________________________________
> 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-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>



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--
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Amical Wikimedia
www.wikimedia.cat
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
<quote name="Lila Tretikov" date="2016-02-21" time="16:22:07 -0800">
> Why we’ve changed

Lila,

This is either the 3rd (or 4th?) semi-conflicting grand statement of
your overall thinking for the WMF that you have shared. If it’s not
that, it reads like an explanation for how you have been thinking about
the WMF since you started.

If the latter, why have we (staff and the community) not been told this
for 661 days? Or, in case I missed it, please do let me know where you
shared this previously. The best way to get people on board with your
thinking is by sharing your thinking in the first place.

Greg

--
| Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E |
| identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
I found this response interesting. It highlights the imbalance we, on the
outside, are having to deal with. It is OK for anyone to criticize the ED
on this list and elsewhere but if she says something that implies
shortcomings on the part of one or more of her staff or former staff - and
if WMF had problems when she arrived at least some of them were staff
problems - it is used as proof she's "literally Hitler".

None of us on the outside knows who's Hitler here. And I guess we never
will. Sorry, but the volunteers who actually write and run Wikipedia can't
just believe either of you.

Does anyone know when the board is meeting (has it met) to resolve this? I
don't want them to rush a poorly thought-through decision but, after a
while, inaction in a human crisis like this becomes negligent abuse.
On 22 Feb 2016 10:53 pm, "Giuseppe Lavagetto" <glavagetto@wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> Dear Lila,
>
> I woke up this morning and as usual I went for my WMF email with my coffee.
>
> I woke up to read my ED implying that the employee discontent[1] was due
> to, amongst other things:
>
> > We’ve asked for adjustment in attitude towards work, our
> responsibilities and professional relationships.
> > We prioritised impact and performance so that we can provide more value
> to our communities and the world.
>
> Now, one easy way to read this, the most obvious one, is that the
> attitude towards work of the WMF employees was somewhat not right or
> unprofessional, and that we were lazy and not goal-driven.
>
> I would find this inappropriate in an internal email, but you went to
> state that in public, and I have to admit I find this is deeply
> offending on a personal and professional level.
>
> I restrained from expressing publicly any issues I might have
> with your own performance; I would love you to not
> spread covert allegations on my performace and professional attitude
> (not specifically, but well, I'm part of the staff here right?).
>
> For the first time in the two years since I joined the WMF I felt a
> sour taste in my mouth for just sitting down to work.
>
> Deeply sad,
>
> Giuseppe
> [1]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-01-06/News_and_notes
> "WMF Staff morale"
> --
> Giuseppe Lavagetto
> Senior Technical Operations Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
> Does anyone know when the board is meeting (has it met) to resolve this? I
> don't want them to rush a poorly thought-through decision but, after a
> while, inaction in a human crisis like this becomes negligent abuse.
>


Yeah, that happened four months ago. It's going great so far.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Danny, four months ago the board decided to give her time. The vocal staff
have responded by rejecting that. The board needs to reconsider, in light
of that response, and either confirm their commitment to the ED or come to
a different resolution. Soon, preferably.
On 23 Feb 2016 12:09 am, "Danny Horn" <dhorn@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> > Does anyone know when the board is meeting (has it met) to resolve this?
> I
> > don't want them to rush a poorly thought-through decision but, after a
> > while, inaction in a human crisis like this becomes negligent abuse.
> >
>
>
> Yeah, that happened four months ago. It's going great so far.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
I think everyone should remember that sarcasm, and tone in general,
frequently do not come through across the wires, as it were.

For that matter, please, stay civil. I'm happy to report that I
haven't had to moderate anyone, yet, but I think we can all appreciate
the current circumstances.

Austin

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 8:03 AM, Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu@gmail.com> wrote:

> I found this response interesting. It highlights the imbalance we, on the
> outside, are having to deal with. It is OK for anyone to criticize the ED
> on this list and elsewhere but if she says something that implies
> shortcomings on the part of one or more of her staff or former staff - and
> if WMF had problems when she arrived at least some of them were staff
> problems - it is used as proof she's "literally Hitler".
>

I don't think she's even figuratively Hitler; rather, she's not good at
communicating ideas or demonstrating leadership.

Multiple staffers are interpreting Lila's message as a carefully
constructed narrative positioning herself as a strong-willed reformer in
opposition to intransigent/incompetent staff. If anything, it's the most
well-constructed communication she's created to date... but even if that
narrative spoke to me as an ideal ("kick out the bums! get work done!") it
doesn't gel with what I've seen, and what other staff have seen, in the
last year and a half. If you don't believe one of us, fine; if you don't
believe any of us, well, I don't know what to say.

The achievements she claims are those of staff, often created as skunkworks
"pet projects". The projects she cites as successes have been losing their
leaders to resignation after resignation. I just don't buy the new
narrative she's giving that our work environment problems are due to
non-performing staff angry at not being promoted or their pet projects
being shut down.


> Does anyone know when the board is meeting (has it met) to resolve this? I
> don't want them to rush a poorly thought-through decision but, after a
> while, inaction in a human crisis like this becomes negligent abuse.
>

Rumor mill says they're meeting again on the subject at 9am pacific today.

(As noted elsewhere, the November board meeting covered the topic of Lila's
performance as ED, and many staff do not feel there has been visible
improvement since. The Board could come back and say "we gave her until
April to improve, she's gotta stay until then, deal with it" or they could
come back with a different decision. Or they might continue to stay silent.
It's increasingly hard to read them, with so many board members failing to
engage in public discussion.)

-- brion



> On 22 Feb 2016 10:53 pm, "Giuseppe Lavagetto" <glavagetto@wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Dear Lila,
> >
> > I woke up this morning and as usual I went for my WMF email with my
> coffee.
> >
> > I woke up to read my ED implying that the employee discontent[1] was due
> > to, amongst other things:
> >
> > > We’ve asked for adjustment in attitude towards work, our
> > responsibilities and professional relationships.
> > > We prioritised impact and performance so that we can provide more value
> > to our communities and the world.
> >
> > Now, one easy way to read this, the most obvious one, is that the
> > attitude towards work of the WMF employees was somewhat not right or
> > unprofessional, and that we were lazy and not goal-driven.
> >
> > I would find this inappropriate in an internal email, but you went to
> > state that in public, and I have to admit I find this is deeply
> > offending on a personal and professional level.
> >
> > I restrained from expressing publicly any issues I might have
> > with your own performance; I would love you to not
> > spread covert allegations on my performace and professional attitude
> > (not specifically, but well, I'm part of the staff here right?).
> >
> > For the first time in the two years since I joined the WMF I felt a
> > sour taste in my mouth for just sitting down to work.
> >
> > Deeply sad,
> >
> > Giuseppe
> > [1]
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-01-06/News_and_notes
> > "WMF Staff morale"
> > --
> > Giuseppe Lavagetto
> > Senior Technical Operations Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Hey everyone,
i'd really like to reaffirm what Àlex wrote in his mail: let's start
with people, not technology.

When i read this in Lila's message:
> Many companies copy our knowledge into their own databases and
> present it inside their interfaces. While this supports wider
> dissemination, it also separates our readers from our community.
It seems like it's a bad thing that people reuse our work. But isn't
that the whole point of our mission? Wikipedia might be the last big
site on the internet where the main focus is not on getting everyone
to share their content in the same walled garden (like Facebook,
Google, Twitter, etc.) but on altruistically creating something that
benefits the whole world.

I completely agree that Wikimedia should be a high-tech organization.
I'm very glad that the focus of development (and user experience in
particular) has shifted to the WMF the last couple of years, bringing
us great improvements like the Visual Editor. But we should not never
forget the purpose of all those improvements: it's to better serve the
community and our mission. We shouldn't be building tech for tech's
sake!

Everyone who has spent more than a few years in this community knows
how incredibly difficult it is to balance the needs of the editors,
the readers, and developers. I'm incredibly grateful to those who
managed to make improvements while not disturbing that balance too
much. Unfortunately, many of these people have left the WMF the last
few years, and that's a very sad thing. It's hard to get good people,
it's even harder to replace them when they're gone.

However important those technical improvements are, the greatest asset
of our movement is not the software we built. It's not even the hard
working people in chapters and the WMF. It's the more than 26 million
people who have had the courage in the last fifteen years to press the
'edit' button and voluntarily gave their time and knowledge for the
common good. When major decisions are made, we should be very sure
that they benefit those people.

Best,
-- Hay / Husky

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 5:29 PM, Austin Hair <adhair@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think everyone should remember that sarcasm, and tone in general,
> frequently do not come through across the wires, as it were.
>
> For that matter, please, stay civil. I'm happy to report that I
> haven't had to moderate anyone, yet, but I think we can all appreciate
> the current circumstances.
>
> Austin
>
> _______________________________________________
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Hi All,

The core problem (as several times before) seems to me that all these broad
discussions are held AFTER things went wrong or a specific meta decision
got out of hand.

Obviously the current transparency of or even the current decision-making
process in its entirety isn't appropiate (anymore) for a movement of such
global variety and plurality.

The BoT is basically paralysed and most probably overstrained, because e.g.
for the sake of the rules of the current construct the relevant power play
decisions must stay non public, not to speak of possible hidden interests
which can conveniently sneak in. And as the icing of the cake a person
asking the wrong questions can easily be removed as a board member.

As much as I care basically more about the subject-oriented debates and the
discourse about the balanced appreciations of values I more and more
convinced that a critical review of the core decision-making processes
become necessary. Not as an end to itself, but to openly rethink the ways
how power and responsibilty in a global, pluralistic movement should be
organized. A movement with the kernel project of an encyclopedia still
being the biggest role model for the idea of an open and free knowledge
based internet (which not necessarily was to follow all the tech and social
media trends relevant to a more commercially oriented platform-monoculture
internet)

It's true, we have to change. But maybe the whys and the hows of change
should be discussed and decided more broadly, more democratically
represented as in the current structure. And especially BEFORE the paths
are already written in stone and the horses have bolted.


Best regards
Jens Best

2016-02-22 17:03 GMT+01:00 Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu@gmail.com>:

> I found this response interesting. It highlights the imbalance we, on the
> outside, are having to deal with. It is OK for anyone to criticize the ED
> on this list and elsewhere but if she says something that implies
> shortcomings on the part of one or more of her staff or former staff - and
> if WMF had problems when she arrived at least some of them were staff
> problems - it is used as proof she's "literally Hitler".
>
> None of us on the outside knows who's Hitler here. And I guess we never
> will. Sorry, but the volunteers who actually write and run Wikipedia can't
> just believe either of you.
>
> Does anyone know when the board is meeting (has it met) to resolve this? I
> don't want them to rush a poorly thought-through decision but, after a
> while, inaction in a human crisis like this becomes negligent abuse.
> On 22 Feb 2016 10:53 pm, "Giuseppe Lavagetto" <glavagetto@wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Dear Lila,
> >
> > I woke up this morning and as usual I went for my WMF email with my
> coffee.
> >
> > I woke up to read my ED implying that the employee discontent[1] was due
> > to, amongst other things:
> >
> > > We’ve asked for adjustment in attitude towards work, our
> > responsibilities and professional relationships.
> > > We prioritised impact and performance so that we can provide more value
> > to our communities and the world.
> >
> > Now, one easy way to read this, the most obvious one, is that the
> > attitude towards work of the WMF employees was somewhat not right or
> > unprofessional, and that we were lazy and not goal-driven.
> >
> > I would find this inappropriate in an internal email, but you went to
> > state that in public, and I have to admit I find this is deeply
> > offending on a personal and professional level.
> >
> > I restrained from expressing publicly any issues I might have
> > with your own performance; I would love you to not
> > spread covert allegations on my performace and professional attitude
> > (not specifically, but well, I'm part of the staff here right?).
> >
> > For the first time in the two years since I joined the WMF I felt a
> > sour taste in my mouth for just sitting down to work.
> >
> > Deeply sad,
> >
> > Giuseppe
> > [1]
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-01-06/News_and_notes
> > "WMF Staff morale"
> > --
> > Giuseppe Lavagetto
> > Senior Technical Operations Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Is it time for a #IamwithVibber tag now? :)

It might be time to consider just promoting Brion or something? (as deputy
or head of engineering). There is no one the community would trust more on
the engineering needs of WMF. And from the looks of it, he does have the
support of staff and isn't holding back any relevant information or
opinion. He can bring stability to a very shake ship right now.

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016, Austin Hair <adhair@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I really don't think I can let this one go, though. Would you please
> name one "pet project"—actually, I don't think it's so much to ask to
> name them all—that's had to be shut down?
>

I think that might be a reference to Flow or AFT, even the MoodBar (3 off
the top of my head). Apart from that staff roles and entire departments
like Globaldev, and I even remember a strategy department briefly, that was
reshuffled. The timeline isn't as clear when these things were refactored
but a lot of things were abandoned over the years.

Lila, I don't know what impression you had before you joined WMF. This
wasn't a struggling project, or not at the desperate level that is forming
your narrative now. We had larger and more successful fundraisers every
year, the staff doubled and tripled, the pageviews rose, as did unique
visitors, and we enjoyed an improving reputation - there were no immediate
burning fires that needed addressing. This entire paradigm shift reeks of a
desperation that isn't supported by facts.

Your project and vision is far too radical for the need of the hour. Even
the changes you speak of, they can only be achieved gradually. You can't
turn this ship in such a dramatic fashion for such an ambitious project.
You should have prototyped exactly what it is you want - you had more than
enough funds and resources without this tiny Knight foundation grant and
this whole drama.

Regards
Theo
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 9:38 AM, Theo10011 <de10011@gmail.com> wrote:

> Is it time for a #IamwithVibber tag now? :)
>

awwww


> It might be time to consider just promoting Brion or something? (as deputy
> or head of engineering). There is no one the community would trust more on
> the engineering needs of WMF. And from the looks of it, he does have the
> support of staff and isn't holding back any relevant information or
> opinion. He can bring stability to a very shake ship right now.
>

Thanks, but I'll openly say that managing a department full of people is a
lot of very hard work and requires skillsets I do not have; that's why I
happily transitioned out of the CTO role in 2009 (and burnout related to
that was one of the reasons I left WMF for a while around that time,
returning in 2011).

-- brion


>
> On Mon, Feb 22, 2016, Austin Hair <adhair@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I really don't think I can let this one go, though. Would you please
> > name one "pet project"—actually, I don't think it's so much to ask to
> > name them all—that's had to be shut down?
> >
>
> I think that might be a reference to Flow or AFT, even the MoodBar (3 off
> the top of my head). Apart from that staff roles and entire departments
> like Globaldev, and I even remember a strategy department briefly, that was
> reshuffled. The timeline isn't as clear when these things were refactored
> but a lot of things were abandoned over the years.
>
> Lila, I don't know what impression you had before you joined WMF. This
> wasn't a struggling project, or not at the desperate level that is forming
> your narrative now. We had larger and more successful fundraisers every
> year, the staff doubled and tripled, the pageviews rose, as did unique
> visitors, and we enjoyed an improving reputation - there were no immediate
> burning fires that needed addressing. This entire paradigm shift reeks of a
> desperation that isn't supported by facts.
>
> Your project and vision is far too radical for the need of the hour. Even
> the changes you speak of, they can only be achieved gradually. You can't
> turn this ship in such a dramatic fashion for such an ambitious project.
> You should have prototyped exactly what it is you want - you had more than
> enough funds and resources without this tiny Knight foundation grant and
> this whole drama.
>
> Regards
> Theo
> _______________________________________________
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 5:03 AM, George Herbert
<george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:

> Lila's vision here clearly calls the change campaign out as having explicitly intended to break eggs.
>
> It further suggests strongly that this was the Board of Trustees' intention in hiring her, and that they agreed with breaking those eggs.

Since you bring it up, and ask for the perspective of past trustees --
as one of the people who helped hired Lila, I did so because I found
much of how she thought about technology, contribution and open
knowledge compelling -- some of which is stated in her mail above --
and I hoped that she'd have the right combination of openness and
boldness to help lead us. I also thought she had the right foundation
of skills and values to do the work in our weird, complex environment.

The Board's initial task for her, as it might have been for any new
ED, was to learn the organization, continue with the usual running of
the organization, and to work with us and Wikimedia as a whole to
develop a strategy for the future. We expected and supported her
focusing on technology, given what a big piece of the organization
this is and her own background; and we supported explorations into the
organization's culture and how it could improve.

I've heard a few conspiracy theories about how the board must have
intended to clean house with Lila's hire. From my perspective, that
was not the case. We hoped of course that Lila would help the
organization improve -- but I am thinking of improvements like
speeding up development and reducing drama around software rollouts,
goals that I don't think would either come as a surprise to anyone or
are particularly controversial.

That does not mean I was surprised that some staff left, especially in
the first few months after she was hired. People do leave in a
leadership transition, for many reasons. And I also was not surprised
by the possibility that Lila might create a different style of
working environment at the Foundation, which would lead others to
leave later. I am surprised and saddened however by this current
crisis (and the last few months leading up to it). According to many
people, things seem to have gone quite badly in terms of
communication, giving guidance and developing organizational consensus
around strategy. Those problems are general problems of execution and
management, and that is deeply unfortunate.

best,
Phoebe

--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 2:03 AM, George Herbert
<george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:

> One phrase I see used quite often is "sometimes we need to break a few eggs." For those who are not native american english speakers, this is referring to the need to move beyond shifting things around into breaking things apart, letting people go who may not fit in the new plan, stopping things outright, etc. The eggs - people, projects, structures, policies, assumptions - need to partly go away - be broken - in order to reform.
>
> Lila's vision here clearly calls the change campaign out as having explicitly intended to break eggs.
>
> It further suggests strongly that this was the Board of Trustees' intention in hiring her, and that they agreed with breaking those eggs.

I left the board during the search process, but remained on the search
committee. So while I cannot know what the board was thinking after
her tenure began, I can say that the search committee was not looking
for a "turnaround CEO"--at least to my understanding we were looking
for someone who would be able to execute better on some of the areas
(particularly engineering) where we wanted to make more improvements
but hadn't.

(Which would naturally involve some change--but sweeping reforms were
not envisioned; part of why Sue stepped down when she did was that she
felt the organization was basically stable and could be smoothly
handed off. It is certainly possible for someone to come in and decide
that was a wrong assessment, but it wasn't what the committee had been
looking for.)

-Kat

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Thank you, Phoebe.


George William Herbert
Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 22, 2016, at 10:06 AM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 5:03 AM, George Herbert
> <george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Lila's vision here clearly calls the change campaign out as having explicitly intended to break eggs.
>>
>> It further suggests strongly that this was the Board of Trustees' intention in hiring her, and that they agreed with breaking those eggs.
>
> Since you bring it up, and ask for the perspective of past trustees --
> as one of the people who helped hired Lila, I did so because I found
> much of how she thought about technology, contribution and open
> knowledge compelling -- some of which is stated in her mail above --
> and I hoped that she'd have the right combination of openness and
> boldness to help lead us. I also thought she had the right foundation
> of skills and values to do the work in our weird, complex environment.
>
> The Board's initial task for her, as it might have been for any new
> ED, was to learn the organization, continue with the usual running of
> the organization, and to work with us and Wikimedia as a whole to
> develop a strategy for the future. We expected and supported her
> focusing on technology, given what a big piece of the organization
> this is and her own background; and we supported explorations into the
> organization's culture and how it could improve.
>
> I've heard a few conspiracy theories about how the board must have
> intended to clean house with Lila's hire. From my perspective, that
> was not the case. We hoped of course that Lila would help the
> organization improve -- but I am thinking of improvements like
> speeding up development and reducing drama around software rollouts,
> goals that I don't think would either come as a surprise to anyone or
> are particularly controversial.
>
> That does not mean I was surprised that some staff left, especially in
> the first few months after she was hired. People do leave in a
> leadership transition, for many reasons. And I also was not surprised
> by the possibility that Lila might create a different style of
> working environment at the Foundation, which would lead others to
> leave later. I am surprised and saddened however by this current
> crisis (and the last few months leading up to it). According to many
> people, things seem to have gone quite badly in terms of
> communication, giving guidance and developing organizational consensus
> around strategy. Those problems are general problems of execution and
> management, and that is deeply unfortunate.
>
> best,
> Phoebe
>
> --
> * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
> <at> gmail.com *
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Thank you as well, Kat.

George William Herbert
Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 22, 2016, at 10:11 AM, Kat Walsh <kat@mindspillage.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 2:03 AM, George Herbert
> <george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> One phrase I see used quite often is "sometimes we need to break a few eggs." For those who are not native american english speakers, this is referring to the need to move beyond shifting things around into breaking things apart, letting people go who may not fit in the new plan, stopping things outright, etc. The eggs - people, projects, structures, policies, assumptions - need to partly go away - be broken - in order to reform.
>>
>> Lila's vision here clearly calls the change campaign out as having explicitly intended to break eggs.
>>
>> It further suggests strongly that this was the Board of Trustees' intention in hiring her, and that they agreed with breaking those eggs.
>
> I left the board during the search process, but remained on the search
> committee. So while I cannot know what the board was thinking after
> her tenure began, I can say that the search committee was not looking
> for a "turnaround CEO"--at least to my understanding we were looking
> for someone who would be able to execute better on some of the areas
> (particularly engineering) where we wanted to make more improvements
> but hadn't.
>
> (Which would naturally involve some change--but sweeping reforms were
> not envisioned; part of why Sue stepped down when she did was that she
> felt the organization was basically stable and could be smoothly
> handed off. It is certainly possible for someone to come in and decide
> that was a wrong assessment, but it wasn't what the committee had been
> looking for.)
>
> -Kat
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
Hi Kat
This is good.

But why not to look for a CTO?

Designing a CTO's profile and putting it in a CEO's profile is a big
challenge. This can happen but means also to have a big change of the
vision of WMF.

Kind regards
Il 22/Feb/2016 19:12, "Kat Walsh" <kat@mindspillage.org> ha scritto:

> On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 2:03 AM, George Herbert
> <george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > One phrase I see used quite often is "sometimes we need to break a few
> eggs." For those who are not native american english speakers, this is
> referring to the need to move beyond shifting things around into breaking
> things apart, letting people go who may not fit in the new plan, stopping
> things outright, etc. The eggs - people, projects, structures, policies,
> assumptions - need to partly go away - be broken - in order to reform.
> >
> > Lila's vision here clearly calls the change campaign out as having
> explicitly intended to break eggs.
> >
> > It further suggests strongly that this was the Board of Trustees'
> intention in hiring her, and that they agreed with breaking those eggs.
>
> I left the board during the search process, but remained on the search
> committee. So while I cannot know what the board was thinking after
> her tenure began, I can say that the search committee was not looking
> for a "turnaround CEO"--at least to my understanding we were looking
> for someone who would be able to execute better on some of the areas
> (particularly engineering) where we wanted to make more improvements
> but hadn't.
>
> (Which would naturally involve some change--but sweeping reforms were
> not envisioned; part of why Sue stepped down when she did was that she
> felt the organization was basically stable and could be smoothly
> handed off. It is certainly possible for someone to come in and decide
> that was a wrong assessment, but it wasn't what the committee had been
> looking for.)
>
> -Kat
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
As an employee of the WMF and a long-time Wikimedian, I strongly agree with
Brion.

Lila, I find your message completely deaf to the real concerns that staff
have been raising for many months. It seems to imply that the turmoil and
heartache we're suffering are not products of poor leadership, but instead
minor side effects of a carefully designed plan. Let me be clear: I am no
part of any silent majority which supports such a plan.

*Neil P. Quinn*
+1 (202) 656 3457

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 12:16 PM, Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Kat
> This is good.
>
> But why not to look for a CTO?
>
> Designing a CTO's profile and putting it in a CEO's profile is a big
> challenge. This can happen but means also to have a big change of the
> vision of WMF.
>
> Kind regards
> Il 22/Feb/2016 19:12, "Kat Walsh" <kat@mindspillage.org> ha scritto:
>
> > On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 2:03 AM, George Herbert
> > <george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > One phrase I see used quite often is "sometimes we need to break a few
> > eggs." For those who are not native american english speakers, this is
> > referring to the need to move beyond shifting things around into breaking
> > things apart, letting people go who may not fit in the new plan, stopping
> > things outright, etc. The eggs - people, projects, structures, policies,
> > assumptions - need to partly go away - be broken - in order to reform.
> > >
> > > Lila's vision here clearly calls the change campaign out as having
> > explicitly intended to break eggs.
> > >
> > > It further suggests strongly that this was the Board of Trustees'
> > intention in hiring her, and that they agreed with breaking those eggs.
> >
> > I left the board during the search process, but remained on the search
> > committee. So while I cannot know what the board was thinking after
> > her tenure began, I can say that the search committee was not looking
> > for a "turnaround CEO"--at least to my understanding we were looking
> > for someone who would be able to execute better on some of the areas
> > (particularly engineering) where we wanted to make more improvements
> > but hadn't.
> >
> > (Which would naturally involve some change--but sweeping reforms were
> > not envisioned; part of why Sue stepped down when she did was that she
> > felt the organization was basically stable and could be smoothly
> > handed off. It is certainly possible for someone to come in and decide
> > that was a wrong assessment, but it wasn't what the committee had been
> > looking for.)
> >
> > -Kat
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
On 02/21/2016 11:03 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
> So, if you speak of structurally connecting *open* sources, as a basis for
> smart editing tools, you seem to be saying that such copyrighted yet openly
> accessible sources, as well as all genuinely paywalled sources, should be
> excluded from these efforts.
>
> If that's correct, and I am not misunderstanding what you mean to say here
> (please correct me if I do!), how do you square it with the Wikimedia
> vision?

She did not say anything about excluding references to proprietary
sources like those you mentioned above. I think we're all in agreement
they will still be referenced.

She described possible enhanced support for including/connecting to open
data. That may not be possible/advisable to do for proprietary data,
which might require proprietary licenses or software.

Of course, it depends on the actual details, but as an analogy think of
how fair use images are allowed on some specific projects (e.g. English
Wikipedia), but the central repositories (Wikimedia Commons and
Wikidata) only include open content/data.

Matt Flaschen

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why we changed [ In reply to ]
On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 10:21 PM, Matthew Flaschen <mflaschen@wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> On 02/21/2016 11:03 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
>
>> So, if you speak of structurally connecting *open* sources, as a basis for
>> smart editing tools, you seem to be saying that such copyrighted yet
>> openly
>> accessible sources, as well as all genuinely paywalled sources, should be
>> excluded from these efforts.
>>
>> If that's correct, and I am not misunderstanding what you mean to say here
>> (please correct me if I do!), how do you square it with the Wikimedia
>> vision?
>>
>
> She did not say anything about excluding references to proprietary sources
> like those you mentioned above. I think we're all in agreement they will
> still be referenced.
>


Thanks for your reply, Matt. At the Knowledge Engine FAQ on Meta, your
colleague Chris Koerner told me, when I asked what criteria a source will
have to fulfil in order to be included in the Knowledge Engine's search
results, that he personally believed "that not only should the sources be
open-access, but they should be in agreement with our other values, neutral
point of view, free license, etc."

So evidently we're not *all* in agreement.



> She described possible enhanced support for including/connecting to open
> data. That may not be possible/advisable to do for proprietary data, which
> might require proprietary licenses or software.
>


Enhanced support for including/connecting open data could, I guess, benefit
both editors adding that data to a Wikimedia project's page (Magnus tweeted
an interesting application earlier today, see [[Falkensee]] in the English
Wikipedia) and commercial re-users.



> Of course, it depends on the actual details, but as an analogy think of
> how fair use images are allowed on some specific projects (e.g. English
> Wikipedia), but the central repositories (Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata)
> only include open content/data.
>


Thanks. That is a good analogy.

I see that there is now a record of a candid discussion between Lila and
the Discovery team of what happened with the Knowledge Engine project here:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discovery/2016-02-16_Discussing_Knowledge_Engine_with_Lila

That is good to see.

Best,
Andreas
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