Talk:Agenda 11May13

Papers for the board

Please put them at Reports 11May13#Staff. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 09:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Video

The last board meeting for which videos have been released on Wikimedia Commons, as part of the charity's commitment to openness and transparency, was a year ago, in April 2012.

Has there been a decision to not video any of this board meeting as well? If so, then as it has been a year since the last video was released, I suggest we make this a decision of the board of trustees one way or another, rather than this appearing to be serendipity.

I will propose at this meeting that the WMUK board now commits to publishing video of open sessions of its meetings, after review for any suitable redactions, with the intention that this fulfils its commitment to access for those unable to travel to the meetings, acts as a firm record of the events of the meeting that the minutes can be assessed against and is a visible demonstration of the values of openness and transparency.

There are suitable meeting mics, camera, tripod in the WMUK office, and Big Blue Button is free to use which will provide an on-line video to instantly refer to, should this be preferred. All we need is staff or a volunteer to get it out of the cupboard, plug in it and switch it on and off.

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:49, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Fae. While I'm all for making the charity open, I agree that this would need a clear board decision on whether or not to video meetings, before going ahead with it.

This is because videoing board meetings - especially live-streaming them - is not considered best practice, as all it takes is one misspoken word during the meeting to cause problems later down the line. Generally, recording the word-for-word exchange between board members will have a chilling effect upon participation, and it's important that board meetings are free, frank discussions where the board can speak their mind.

Finally, I'm not sure that there's anyone who can review the videos for appropriate redactions - the staff don't have time to, and I also doubt that the board have the time to review the videos themselves before consenting to release. These are all things for the board to consider in the meeting when you propose this, but I look forward to the proposal. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 10:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I take it that you believe the meeting is not going to be videoed? As a trustee I have no idea about any of this any more, I seem to be last in the food chain. --Fæ (talk) 14:12, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

The process of videoing is more complex and time consuming than you might be aware. I'm not really happy to go ahead without clear authority from the current board, and a plan for how the videos are going to be reviewed to ensure that we don't breach any confidences. I applaud you bringing this up, though: I think it would be helpful for the entire board to discuss whether or not this is a good idea, and if the board decide to go ahead with filming, and if there are resources in place for review and upload, then we can go ahead - possibly even the same day, if the decision is made early enough in the meeting. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 15:05, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, there was never a decision to stop filming open board meetings, whilst there was a decision to film open board meetings. So if there is a discussion, it would be whether to stop our open board meetings being open to recording. If nothing else, an unpublished video record (I have not suggested live public web-casting here) helps avoid confusion over the content of board minutes, which has happened several times I believe. I may have missed a decision of the board on this in some recent minutes somewhere, happy to be corrected.

With respect to "I'm not really happy to go ahead without clear authority", I am unclear why this is a matter for your call, indeed this need take none of your time, or the time from any staff members as I will be happy to call a halt to the meeting whilst I get the kit out of the cupboard and set it up if necessary. There would be little problem in passing the video files to volunteers for processing and editing if needed (our practice is to switch the video feed off for in-camera sessions). In my view this would be a good use of my volunteer time as a trustee as a demonstration of the commitment of the trustees to openness.

By the way, I processed and published on Commons the first videos of our meetings (you may recall that Sue Gardner had no qualms about being filmed for open publication or had any concerns about the potential for one misspoken word, which are likely to occur in open meetings). As a result, you can expect me to be aware of the time it can take, hence I would consider using simple online tools such as BBB or the easy YouTube editor. Fortunately, there is no particular deadline for publishing videos of meetings, though personally I would want to do these within 2 months or it does not seem worth the effort. --Fæ (talk) 15:34, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm with Fæ here when it comes to filming the board meetings. When we started doing this, we touted it as a significant improvement to our transparency as an organisation, both to our members and fellow Wikimedia organisations. Frankly, it's embarrassing that we've since gone back on that without saying why we've changed our minds here (or even figuring out whether we have changed our minds here).

Given where we are now, I think it's reasonable for us to have a brief discussion at the start of the meeting, to make sure that the current board is happy with the filming taking place (and when things need to be discussed in-camera) or, if not, to formally minute the reasons why we no longer want to do this. I would expect the office to make sure that the equipment is available at the board meeting, and is fully prepped and ready to roll, so that recording of the meeting can start immediately if that's what decided - this shouldn't be a lot of work to do. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:39, 8 May 2013 (UTC)