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We should set-up a similar page as soon as we get some more official postions. --[[User:Daniel Mayer|Daniel Mayer]] 05:26, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps [[Official positions]]
By the way,
*@De, Fr, Ko; page(s) should be updated - there is only mention to Election 2004, and its vote elibigility but this information is now almost useless because the eligilibity in this year was changed.
*En modified, but still it seems to need to be worked due to the same reason as above; and if it is okay, before calling for translators, it should be copyedited.
Thank you for attention, --[[User:Aphaia|Aphaea]] 22:15, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

== Where to discuss this page ==

I have a couple of comments on this page, mainly regarding style and consistency. Since most people can not edit and discuss on this wiki, is there a talk page on meta which is more suitable? If so, where? // [[User:Habj|habj]] 15:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
:True. This is not a right place to have a discussion. We are better to go to an open wiki. How about [[m:Talk:Translation requests/WMF/Board of Trustees]] (or ../source)? We can also invite people somewhere else, site feedback, [[m:Metapub]] etc. --[[User:Aphaia|Aphaea]] 15:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

== Notes ==

"(to be held until chapters make their own appointment)"

I misread this to understand that Michael held the ''Chair'' position until the chapters make their own appointments, rather than that his term is until the chapters make their own appointment. At the moment I think it is reasonable to read it as the chapters will be appointing the Chair and the Executive Secretary, rather than simply appointing those two ''seats'' (not many people fully understand how the executive is appointed).

However, I didn't want to make any changes for fear of losing body parts, so suggesting it to someone who has guillotine-immunity :) Cheers, [[User:Daniel|Daniel]] 03:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

:I was thinking this earlier but then forgot about it. ;-) I just added a note that should clear it up a little bit. '''[[User:Cbrown1023|<span style="color:green">Cbrown1023</span>]]''' '''<small>[[User talk:Cbrown1023|<span style="color:#002bb8">talk</span>]]</small>''' 17:47, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

== Chart ==

Courtesy of WJBscribe:

{{#tag:timeline|
DateFormat=dd/mm/yyyy
ImageSize= width:800 height:auto barincrement:21
Period = from:01/01/2004 till:31/12/2009
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:20 left:20 bottom:50 top:5

Colors =
id:bg value:rgb(0.9,0.9,1)
id:elected value:rgb(0.7,0.9,0.7)
id:appointed value:rgb(1,0.8,0.7)
id:space value:rgb(0.5,0.5,0.5)
id:line value:black
id:lightline value:rgb(0.8,0.8,0.8)
id:header value:rgb(0.6,0.6,0.9)
id:lighttext value:rgb(0.5,0.5,0.5)

BackgroundColors = canvas:bg
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/2004
ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightline unit:month increment:1 start:01/01/2004

BarData =
Bar:T1
Barset:Board

PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black

bar:T1 color:header textcolor:white width:20 shift:(-130,-5) fontsize:m from:01/01/2004 till:31/12/2009 text:"Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees"

barset:Board
barset:break
shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s
color:appointed from:16/01/2004 till:31/12/2008 text:"[[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]]"
color:appointed from:16/01/2004 till:14/12/2006 text:"[[User:Tim Shell|Tim Shell]]"
color:appointed from:16/01/2004 till:30/11/2007 text:"[[User:Michael Davis|Michael Davis]]"
color:elected from:01/06/2004 till:01/07/2007 text:"[[User:Anthere|Florence Nibart-Devouard]]"
color:elected from:01/06/2004 till:25/09/2006 text:"[[User:Angela|Angela Beesley]]"
color:appointed from:08/12/2006 till:13/07/2007 text:"[[User:Mindspillage|Kat Walsh]]"
color:appointed from:08/12/2006 till:13/07/2007 text:"[[User:Oscar|Oscar van Dill.]]"
color:appointed from:21/04/2008 till:31/12/2008 text:"[[User:Stu|Stu West]]"
barset:break
at:26/09/2006
color:space from:12/12/2006 till:15/12/2006 text:" "
color:appointed from:14/02/2008 till:{{CURRENTDAY2}}/{{CURRENTMONTH}}/{{CURRENTYEAR}} text:"[[User:Michael Snow|Michael Snow]]¹"
color:appointed from:01/07/2007 till:01/07/2008 text:" "
color:space from:22/09/2006 till:25/09/2006 text:" "
color:elected from:13/07/2007 till:01/07/2009 text:" "
color:space from:10/07/2007 till:13/07/2007 text:" "
at:26/09/2006
barset:break
at:26/09/2007
color:appointed from:15/12/2006 till:31/12/2008 text:"[[User:Jan-Bart|Jan-Bart de Vreede]]"
at:26/09/2007
color:space from:23/06/2008 till:26/06/2008 text:" "
color:elected from:26/09/2006 till:15/12/2007 text:"[[User:Eloquence|Erik Möller]]"
at:26/09/2007
color:elected from:13/07/2007 till:06/09/2008 text:"[[User:Frieda|Frieda Brioschi]]"
barset:break
at:26/09/2007
at:26/09/2007
at:26/09/2007
color:elected from:26/06/2008 till:01/07/2009 text:"[[User:Wing|Ting Chen]]"
color:appointed from:14/02/2008 till:{{CURRENTDAY2}}/{{CURRENTMONTH}}/{{CURRENTYEAR}} text:"[[User:Midom|Domas Mituzas]]¹"

TextData =
fontsize:S
textcolor:lighttext
pos:(200,30)
text:"Appointed board members are in light orange. Elected board members are in light green."
text:"¹ Michael Snow and Domas Mituzas serve until Wikimedia Chapters make their own appointments
}}

Anyone know how to fix it so it displays, and any ideas where we should put it? [[User:Daniel|Daniel]] 00:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
:Bring up a discussion on [[m:Wikimedia site feedback]] (so more can participate) and make sure we poke Jay or someone on ComCom for their opinion. '''[[User:Cbrown1023|<span style="color:green">Cbrown1023</span>]]''' '''<small>[[User talk:Cbrown1023|<span style="color:#002bb8">talk</span>]]</small>''' 14:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

== Sticking this somewhere for a few minutes ==

* [[#Ting Chen|Ting Chen]], Chair <small>(term until July 2013)</small>
* [[#Jan-Bart de Vreede|Jan-Bart de Vreede]], Vice Chair <small>(term until December 2012)</small>
* [[#Phoebe Ayers|Phoebe Ayers]], Executive Secretary <small>(term until July 2012) </small>
* [[#Stu West|Stu West]], Treasurer <small>(term until December 2012)</small>
* [[#Bishakha Datta|Bishakha Datta]] <small>(term until December 2012)</small>
* [[#Matt Halprin|Matt Halprin]] <small>(term until December 2012)</small>
* [[#Samuel Klein|Samuel Klein]] <small>(term until July 2013)</small>
* [[#Arne Klempert|Arne Klempert]] <small>(term until July 2012)</small>
* [[#Jimmy Wales|Jimmy Wales]], <small>(term until December 2012)</small>
* [[#Kat Walsh|Kat Walsh]] <small>(term until July 2013)</small>

Going to switch a Board member infobox in a few minutes, but in case I get distracted, I snipped this info out of the article.... --[[User:MZMcBride|MZMcBride]] 23:24, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

== TL;DR ==

I doubt if anyone is ever going to read that amount of text, especially with the newest additions which are ''awfully'' formatted. I'd suggest a rewrite of the page, for instance in a way that Bishakha's and Stu's one-paragraph descriptions suggest, with links to more detailed descriptions where appriopriate. (And probably a new, more colourful design, could also help.) A concerned Wikimedian, [[user:odder|odder]] 23:00, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, agreed.

There are a few issues here with the [https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?oldid=83125 current version] of the page:

* there's currently too much text for each person (only about a paragraph or two is needed);
* some of the writing is just bad;
* the tenure accomplishments sections are bizarre:
** they're horribly duplicative;
*** including completely out-of-left-field sentences such as "This year, Lisbett Rausing and Peter Baldwin have donated $1.25 million." (repeated three times!);
** usually sections such as these would be reserved only for Board chairs (in the same way that high court history is written about and referred to by the chief judge [e.g.., the Rehnquist Court]);
** this kind of content would generally go on a single Board history or Board accomplishments page;
** these tenure sections create needless page imbalance between old and new Board members (which is bad for both aesthetic/layout and social reasons);
* we need better linking to more information; if people really want Jimmy's full bio, they can read his user page and/or his biography on the English Wikipedia; the [[former Board members]] actually already have this feature; and lastly
* more text is a larger pain in the ass to get translated.

I'm hoping to find some time in the next week or so to fix up the page. We'll see! --[[User:MZMcBride|MZMcBride]] ([[User talk:MZMcBride|talk]]) 23:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

:A few months ago, Sue asked me to expand the Board of Trustees page to add length to their individual bios in a manner that better reflected their accomplishments, further promoted their work on-wiki and detailed their focus on the Board. We've conducted a number of interviews with board members and we've enlisted other board members to directly edit their bios on Office wiki, then the plan has been to transfer them over to Foundation wiki as they are ready. The discrepancy in the lengths of the bios reflects the difference in who has completed their bios and signed off on them, versus those who have yet to complete them. The imbalance should only be temporary. Bishakha's will likely be ready soon and I'm hopeful Stu's will too. I'm fine with reverting it for now if it seems unacceptable to you both, but I hope you'll understand that we're planning to expand them all to approximately 5-7 paragraphs. Sue also wanted to dramatically expand the amount of text associated with their tenure accomplishments. That large block of text reflects a few hours of her and my time combing through the past resolutions and working on language that fit her vision for the page. I'm happy to discuss other ways to format and make it more pleasing to the eye, but she intends to have that material in some format on the page. I'll leave her a note to weigh in if she'd like, but I hope we can have a longer conversation about this before you change it too much. I'm super open to your suggestions and help in improving this. Thanks, [[User:Mroth|Mroth]] ([[User talk:Mroth|talk]]) 00:22, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't really have the time or patience to sit down and figure out what exactly changed between the three times you pasted this text in. It looks like you just trimmed the text off the top based on how long the Board member served and made no other changes. Given that Kat has served the longest, I'm pasting the (now-removed) text from her bio below for reference [''[//wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Resolutions&oldid=83154#Tenure_Accomplishments removed]''].

It sounds like you and Sue want a [[Board accomplishments]] page or some other page (such as [[History of the Board of Trustees]], which could use some love). This page ("Board of Trustees") is a place to document who's currently on the Board of Trustees and provide brief bios of each sitting member. [Though perhaps the page title isn't clear enough? It kind of matches "Staff and contractors" in this way, though.] It's fine to have content documenting the Board's achievements, but it makes absolutely no sense to include a copy of this text in every Board members' bio. The text itself is also poorly formatted (one monolith paragraph, poor linking, etc.) and has serious flow problems.

I don't know anything about Board members approving their own bios (or why Board members would have accounts on office.wikimedia.org, for that matter), but I doubt that any signed off on this text. I've no idea why any of them would want this text in their biography in this form. --[[User:MZMcBride|MZMcBride]] ([[User talk:MZMcBride|talk]]) 05:32, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
: Ouch. This long history doesn't belong on personal bio pages or on the list of [[resolutions]]. I'll move it to its own page.
: I haven't had much time to look at this, but information about who is doing what should be balanced and useful to the reader. For instance, a "History of Wikimedia" page with a section for "Governance" covering Board / ED / committee governance, and brief factual bios about all Trustees, linking to their userpages where helpful. Narrative personal bios are always tricky. Framing them or governance as a series of proud accomplishments particularly so. (which tends towards 'marketing language', overweights events based on perceived success rather than impact, and avoids even important and useful controversies or failures, which are worth honoring in any balanced history.)
: A list of past and present committee memberships and workstreams would be useful. I'm not sure about the rest. [[User:Sj|Sj]] ([[User talk:Sj|talk]]) 22:13, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
:: Now cleaned up and merged with the existing Board history page at [[History of the Wikimedia Foundation]]. [[User:Sj|Sj]] ([[User talk:Sj|talk]]) 23:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
:::I've updated with a section from 2003-2004. All of this information comes from a sit-down I had with Sue where we went over the history of Board activities and hashed out the ones she wanted to highlight. I appreciate the formatting for it now, but the intention is eventually to have the list of board accomplishments better associated with board members specifically, both as a way to honor the work of the board and to accentuate the highlights. The fact that it is not done this way elsewhere is not a detracting point, in our opinion, but an opportunity for us to distinguish this board page from that of other foundations/non-profits. That is expressly Sue's goal with the redux to the page. Can you all help us conceive of a format where we can include the long board accomplishments in the board bios page? Is there formatting that hides the longer accomplishments text until a reader clicks on it? Appreciate your feedback and hope you can help me with this. Thank you, [[User:Mroth|Mroth]] ([[User talk:Mroth|talk]]) 23:24, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
:::: The show/hide thing was done at [[Staff and contractors]]. I'd rather not repeat it.
:::: Most of the text you wrote (or pasted into the page) was duplicative, some of it was simply wrong, and it didn't fit into the page's purpose. If you can write some copy for each member that actually highlights the member's accomplishments (rather than simply reformatting an index of Board resolutions and pasting it in a few times, truncating as you go), it'll be much easier to help you figure out a way to incorporate the text into the site.
:::: You probably want to make a draft somewhere. [[Wikimedia:Sandbox]] is available. Until you have something worth looking at, it doesn't make sense for anyone to try to assist you. --[[User:MZMcBride|MZMcBride]] ([[User talk:MZMcBride|talk]]) 23:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
:I've cut the text from above since it's available [//wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Resolutions&oldid=83154#Tenure_Accomplishments here] and I think we can continue to edit it on that page (for now). --[[User:Nemo_bis|Nemo]] 20:07, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

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