Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard

←Board of Trustees

Board noticeboard

Archives →

Welcome to the Board of Trustees' noticeboard. This is a message board for discussing issues related to Wikimedia Foundation governance and policies, and related Board work. Please post new messages at the bottom of the page and sign them.

• For details of the Board's role and processes, see the Board Handbook.
• Threads older than 90 days will be automatically archived by ArchiverBot.

Proposed resolution on user rights process

As announced earlier, I prepared a very simple text the board can certainly agree with: User:Nemo bis/User rights process. Please schedule for the earlier opportunity (a quick online meeting is probably sufficient). I recommend to vote on it before the WMF board elections end, to ensure higher participation. --Nemo 20:48, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi Nemo, I will bring this to the attention of the board. But this is in no way the "easy" topic you are suggesting it is. I will get back to you Jan-Bart (talk) 10:30, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Move for closure of a proposal

Proposals_for_closing_projects/Move_Beta_Wikiversity_to_Incubator#Move for closure I believe that this conversation has gone on for plenty of time to assess the feasibility, community consensus, relative strengths of discussions, etc. regarding closing beta.wv and incorporating its content into Meta and Incubator as appropriate. I hope that someone here can put to rest the conversation there and either a.) have us move on and let beta.wv be or b.) let us get started with winding down beta.wv. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:15, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

@Justin, let me check how to close this issue best. Will come back to you soon. Alice Wiegand (talk) 20:36, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

We should have a community process for closing proposals for new projects & for closing projects. And a dev contact who can carry out the details required to flip the relevant switches. It's not a board task. But if that doesn't exist, perhaps we can help create one. –SJ talk  23:22, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Accountability to the community

Following an exchange with the Foundation Treasurer, he has made it clear [1] that he does not regard himself as required to respond to questions from the community regarding the financial and business operations of the WMF, but rather sees his accountability as being restricted to the Board. This raises questions for governance which I think it is for the Board to address. There seem to be three main lines that the Board might wish to take.

Does the Board believe that members of the community have the right to raise a question of this nature directly with WMF staff? Does the Board believe that common courtesy imposes a requirement that such questions be properly acknowledged and managed by a nominated staff member, even if it not possible or desirable to answer them in detail? Will the Board mandate a clear coherent effective process with known lines of responsibility and accountability for such questions to be raised and answered?

If the Board does not believe that individual community members should raise such questions directly with WMF staff, will the Board institute a process for taking such questions themselves for subsequent discussion with staff? Will the Board commit to acknowledging such questions and, in the interests of transparency, publishing as much of the answer they receive as possible?

If the Board believe that community members should not involve themselves in these issues either directly or indirectly, will the Board make a clear public statement of their position on this issue?

Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:03, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

A correction to the statement from Rogol, I have never stated that I do not need to respond to questions to the community. Over my nearly four years with the Foundation, I have a record of responding to inquires from the community. What I was responding to was the request for a detailed listing of purchases of furniture and equipment. I have provided information on the percentage allocation of spending to furniture and computer equipment (servers) and I believe this is sufficient given my review of the records.GByrd (WMF) (talk) 16:56, 22 June 2015 (UTC)