Talk:Governance/2012 Financial review by Garfield Byrd, WMF CFO
Could someone point me to the email/minutes where we agreed that this should be made public? I can't find a decision that I've been made aware of... Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 14:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
- Not that I don't think it should be made public: but it was my understanding that we were going to write a reply to it before it was made public... Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 14:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
- This is a public report and Jon's email dated 10 October, which you have a copy of, is sufficient in my judgement as a trustee for me to act promptly in accordance with our values. The trustees have been sent no email saying that any staff member had a plan to reply to the report, or that this was a precondition to it becoming correctly public.
- I have patiently waited 3 weeks wondering when this would be made public. I see no reason for me to ask permission or to force the trustees to have yet another in-camera vote for a public report in the public interest to publish publicly, to be made public—rather than becoming another of our secret documents languishing on closed wikis or in a draft state for many months or indefinitely. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
- You're asking the wrong question, Richard. Where is the email/minutes where it was decided not to make it public? The default is to make everything public. --Tango (talk) 18:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
- We're going to make it public, certainly, and as soon as possible: I'd just like the office to be involved so that we can answer questions as they come in. As it stands, I wasn't aware that it had been released on the wiki, or that it was going to be released - no-one in the office was aware. That's not ideal. My understanding was that we (me, Jon and John) were going to come up with more detailed explanations of the various points raised, and explain how we're going to go about fixing each of the issues, so that everyone has their questions answered straight away. This review was, to a large part, checking how well my work has been going: having it released without notice just before I go on a four day weekend isn't really ideal, because, well, who would be around to answer questions from members? Jon is on holiday, I'm about to go on holiday for the next two days, Mike Peel is in San Francisco with the FDC, and John Byrne may well have plans too. If these things are going to be released, they have to be released with - at a minimum - the agreement and foreknowledge of treasurer and at least one member of staff. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 19:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Fae's deletion of this report from the public wiki
After publishing this document, it has become clear that it was discussed in an Executive meeting that I was not invited to, or was aware of the content of. After John Byrne emailed me today, requesting that this document was removed from the public wiki, I have done so. Jon Davies' email to me of 11 October 2012 appears to be a mistake, giving the impression that the report was released to WMUK. It has been made clear today that there is no objection from Garfield Byrd to making the report public, and there is no plan to have the report amended in any way. I will continue to push to have the report released for the benefit of Wikimedia UK's members as soon as possible in line with our stated values, as I have yet to be given any non-bureaucratic reason as to why this must be kept secret for any longer than it has already. I do not accept that we may be working on related actions plans as a good reason to withhold this document and after waiting 3 weeks without any in-camera discussion or apparent action plan being explained to the Board. I thought that nothing was going on out of sight of the trustees; in this I appear to have been mistaken. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Comment
I have to say that I am disappointed that Fæ undertook a unilateral decision to publish this document rather prematurely. The Board's intention was to publish this document along with a response to the points that it raised; unfortunately Fæ chose to not contribute to that response but instead chose to cause problems that resulted in that response being delayed. Personally, this put me in the very uncomfortable position of wanting this document to be made publicly available as soon as possible but having to delete it from this wiki and raise repeated objections to its public release until that response had been assembled. The response has now been written, and will hopefully be released in the next day or so. Mike Peel (talk) 22:06, 22 November 2012 (UTC)