Talk:Draft Openness Policy

Implementation

This is a fantastic idea, but I have a few concerns (with my office manager hat on) about implementation:

• Producing two copies of potentially every document we generate - one redacted, one not redacted - is a lot of work
• Presumably all staff emails which didn't involve confidential information would need to be made public, eg "We need more ink for the printer", or "Please remember to fill in your holiday sheets" - and how do we filter "open" emails from "non-open" ones after the fact? Should emails about paper supplies running low be sent to one list, and confidential emails be sent to another list? How do we manage things if an email thread crosses over between the two lists?
• From a staff point of view, I'm worried about staff members having their decisions second-guessed, eg "Why did we buy such expensive staples for the Annual Report?", followed by an inevitable community discussion on better staples.
• Finally - and I hate to say this - but I've had more requests from people that we stop sending out so many emails to the public list (because it's flooding their inboxes), than I have from people asking to have more emails sent.

In short: Certainly, we need to be open. But being open doesn't mean releasing everything in a torrent of inconsequential information which only a minority (less than a dozen) of volunteers have time to read. I think the best way to approach this is with reports, and phone calls to volunteers, and turning up at wikimeets, and having volunteers working in the office. After all, the best way to hide something is to cover it in inconsequential information. I think that the best way to go about this is not with a policy, but with a re-affirmation of our values. We could go ahead with this in a "full and uncut" version, but I would not be able to keep up with the extra work generated. I hope this makes sense! Richard Symonds (talk) 11:09, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

It was a quiet day yesterday - only sent 37 emails. The vast majority are very dull day-to-day stuff. If I wanted to hide something from the community I would publish them all in the complete expectation that nobody would have the time to fillet out the one where Richard and I buy the helicopter.

Another example that goes against the 'publish all' idea is when Stevie creates something like the annual report. With tweaks between him, the community feedback, trustee suggestions, printer's corrections and the graphic designer's tuppence worth this will amount to dozens of versions.

WMUK is already very open and we publish, I would say, 95 out of every 100 documents we produce that are of any potential importance.

If there is a genuine problem that needs fixing then identify it - if we are hiding something from the community tell us (although of course if we are good at hiding things they wouldn't know!)

Most of all we are working hard to make things happen - if we have to report everything we do it will cut down dramatically on that. I want to get 100% activity out of the staff targeted towards delivering the plan, not reporting on what they did today. My job is to make sure the office delivers. I currently report weekly to the trustees and in detail at the Board meetings. Much more importantly, I respond to all member requests for information promptly and, unless it is confidential, in full.

It comes down to trust.

Trust the staff to get on with their work

Trust the Trustees to make sure they do it well

Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 11:19, 28 June 2012 (UTC)