[Foundation-l] Re: Resignation as CRO

Thu Aug 18 00:43:18 UTC 2005

I normally try to avoid "me too" posts, but I feel I should speak up to 
say that I agree with virtually everything Erik Zachte wrote, and thank 
him immensely for taking the time to compose that thoughtful message.

I want to add some thoughts on the transparency issue he raised. A very 
critical part of managing any organization, especially one as committed 
to ideals of openness as Wikimedia, is reporting back to everyone about 
your activities. Given the transparency of most actions on a wiki, 
producing such reports is especially important for off-wiki activity.

In particular this applies to the board, the officers (including those 
of local chapters), and the developers. I trust all of these people and 
the processes by which they were chosen, but we still need to hear from 
all of them regularly about their work. The proliferation of non-public 
mailing lists and wikis adds to the concern. I understand that some 
matters cannot be announced at the outset, and that deliberation and 
delay may allow for a more thorough report. But on the other hand, 
disappearing behind closed doors, not to be heard from again, is not an 
acceptable option.

With the developers this is a longstanding problem, and they struggle 
constantly with more pressing issues, like a simple lack of manpower 
(womanpower would certainly do as well if we can recruit some female 
developers). I'm guessing we could use three or four times as many 
developers before we'd have enough of them to spare one to spend much 
time reporting. I think most people are willing to give a lot of slack 
here as long as the sites keep running.

For the rest, because the issues they deal with are more frequently 
"political", people will be more uncomfortable with a lack of 
transparency. I see some effort to deal with this, but I'm afraid that 
even among those of us who are deeply interested enough to be on this 
list, people frequently feel out of the loop on issues of concern to 
them. I have tried to contribute a little myself toward more thorough 
reporting (and hope to help more in the future), but the overall task is 
a full-time job and I already have one of those.

Keeping people informed is essential to sustaining trust, and makes a 
tremendous difference in whether they will accept the decisions you make.

--Michael Snow