Talk:Board/Characteristics

Does Wikimedia UK wish to encourage open LGBT people to join the board of trustees?

I was interested to see that the Chairman of the board has chosen to drop sexual orientation as a desirable element of diversity from a future board, after I made the effort to add it to this document (diff). Does anyone else have a view on whether this is a desirable characteristic of the board that needs to be stated?

If the general view is that it is not, perhaps because we fear negative publicity of some sort, then as an openly gay man and a co-founder of Wikimedia LGBT, I will be happy to find a charity more welcoming than the one envisaged here. I note that this is not the first time this was noticeably absent from our definition of diversity, I recall having to point this out with our last Activity Plan so that it would be mentioned in public. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 22:18, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Fae, my rationale is as follows. I am of course very keen to ensure that Wikimedia UK is welcoming to LGBT people; this is particularly natural as I am one of the two LGB Board members we currently have (at least those that I am aware of, and to be honest I don't know how most of the Board define their sexuality, and haven't asked). However, if something is detailed explicitly in this document, then we are committing ourselves to proactive action to correct it if it's missing. We don't, as shouldn't, ask prospective Board members about their sexuality, so it is difficult to monitor and take into consideration. Hence I took it out. Obviously I'd welcome more discussion on this point. What does the rest of the community think? The Land (talk) 08:14, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

As you are asking the community, I shall raise this question on the Water cooler later today. Your reply is tangential to the issue, we do not have to ask individual board members to declare their sexual orientation in private or public. We can create a supportive environment and we can ask prospective trustees about their diversity and anonymize the results so we know if our recruitment process is effective on this, or not. Your edit in deliberately removing any mention of sexual orientation makes this charity a non-supportive environment, because it basically guarantees that we would not bother mentioning LGBT issues, or attempt to be inclusive in our recruitment of trustees (such as choosing to advertise in LGBT related publications) or in our long term strategic goals or objectives for the charity. If this is not completely right and open at the board level, then it will never be right at the membership level or the project level. I firmly recommend that as you took it out without discussion, you put it back in, as a gesture of good faith in the light of UK charity best practice, whilst we canvas the community about your action, regardless of your personal views.

I take care to use the term LGBT, I consider it important to never drop trans people from policy. --Fæ (talk) 09:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Fae - yes, having thought about it a bit further, this is a document that sets out our aspirations for diversity, so it would be odd not to include sexual orientation in that; I've re-amended the draft. Very happy to include transgender status as well if someone wants to propose a form of words. For staff, we do indeed include equal opportunities questionnaire as part of the application process; I wonder if it's a good idea to do the same for trustees. The Land (talk) 19:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

There is a big difference between equality and diversity. I would rather we concentrated on having a well-qualified board rather than a diverse one. Diversity does have benefits for a charity, so it should be a consideration, but primarily we should be recruiting the best person for the job. Diversity is best achieved by making sure we have a diverse group of candidates - as long as there is no discrimination in the selection process, a diverse group of candidates should lead to a reasonably diverse board (I'm not aware of any strong correlation between any of the characteristics mentioned and ability as a trustee that would lead to a significant bias). Actively trying to have a diverse board across a large number of dimensions, though, leads to appointing token representatives of minority groups (they may be qualified representatives, but won't necessarily be the best qualified). --Tango (talk) 20:50, 27 February 2013 (UTC)