Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Community Board seats/Conversations/2021-02-02 - First Office Hour/am

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Call for feedback: Community Board seats
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The first office hours during the Call for Feedback: Community Board seats took place at 3 different times on February 2, 2021 using Google Meet. The office hours lasted nearly 90 minutes each. The first hour of each office hour session was recorded. Additional resources to accompany this summary include videos, transcriptions, chat logs, and notes taken by the facilitator team.

There were 99 total attendees with a majority from Europe and North America.

Summary

This is a summary of the first office hours during the Call for Feedback: Community Board seats taking place from February 1 to March 14. The office hours took place at 3 different times on February 2, 2021 using Google Meet. The office hours lasted nearly 90 minutes each. The first hour of each office hour session was recorded. Additional resources to accompany this summary include videos, transcriptions, chat logs, and notes taken by the Board Governance facilitator team.

There were 99 total attendees with a majority from Europe and North America. There were members of the Board of Trustees in attendance during the first 2 sessions. The trustee planning to attend the final session was unable to attend.

Themes

This is a summary of the themes that were covered during the office hours sessions. Specific ideas were not discussed in depth. The conversation largely focused on the following themes:

Theme 1: Diversity

  • Isn’t diversity fine just as it is?
  • Diversity is being defined by larger groups
  • Quotas sound encouraging for regions
  • Suggestion of regional board seats

Theme 2: Communication

  • Need for better communication about the Board opportunities
    • Especially better communication to small or underrepresented communities
    • Translations are important for diversity
  • Need for better communication about what the Board does
    • Community members suggested receiving Board updates from a Board member is preferred over receiving them from WMF staff
  • Community members noted appreciation of the communication support from the WMF staff for this Call for Feedback
  • Need to balance and respect time demand on volunteers to participate in discussions
    • Appreciate time and capacity needs as they apply to diversity
    • Concerns that there are too many meetings
    • Feeling of exhaustion among volunteers participating in movement conversations

Theme 3: Skills

  • Suggestions about having training opportunities for Board members and other leadership within wikimedia communities
  • Outreach and informative sessions to encourage people to seek leadership positions
  • Can’t the Board address the problem of skills with the directly appointed trustees?
    • Community seats should be for representing the community, and the aspect of skills is secondary
  • Grow Board members from the communities by embracing skills that are not only typical of larger communities

Theme 4: Maintaining current practices

  • Some do not understand why current practices are not acceptable
    • This is related to the idea that the current diversity of the Board is ok, and also the skills provided by the community-and-affiliate selected trustees.
  • Elections
    • Some feel direct elections are the appropriate practice
    • Some feel the community should decide the trustee selection processes
    • Some feel the Board should organize the due elections before discussing changes in the processes

Miscellaneous questions

  • What are the safeguards to prevent the Board of Trustees from turning into an advisory board (like the UN)?
  • Some communities have more participation or more groups. How can we create diversity and prevent unfair influence?
  • How do we create a situation where candidates from larger communities do not overshadow candidates from small or underrepresented communities?

Thank you for reviewing this summary of the first office hours. Please connect with a facilitator to plan a conversation for your project or affiliate. Share on the Call for Feedback talk page if there are any corrections to this report. The Board Governance facilitators apologize in advance for any misgendering that may have happened during the note-taking process.

Meeting reports

Every report includes video, notes, transcript, and chat.

Invitation

The team facilitating the Call for feedback about Community Board seats invites you to our first office hour. Three meetings cover different time zones:

  1. 2021-02-02 at 12:00 UTC - Done
  2. 2021-02-02 at 18:00 UTC - Done
  3. 2021-02-02 at 23:00 UTC - Done

All participants agree to abide by the Friendly space policy for Wikimedia events.

Agenda

  • Office hour logistics (explained below)
  • Meet the team
  • Basic info about the Board and the call for feedback
  • Questions & answers

How to join

  • We will use Google Meet. Logged in and anonymous guests are accepted.
  • We will share the link 15 minutes before the official start. If you can, join early.

During the meeting

  • Please mute yourself when you are not speaking.
  • If you want to ask a question, raise your hand and wait until your turn arrives.
  • Keep your questions short and on the topic of the call for feedback.
  • You can use the chat, just be mindful about side conversations becoming distracting.
  • Don’t worry about notifications of late arrivals requesting access. The organizers will approve them.
  • The meetings will be recorded.
  • Automatic captions will be enabled.
  • Expect basic moderation for the turn of questions and muting noise.
  • Expect quick moderation if anyone disrupts the room (the link is public, anyone can join anonymously)
  • If there is interest, at the end of the office hour the team will stay and keep the room open for casual conversation.
  • Due to technical limitations, we cannot offer live-streaming (we had to choose between automatic captions or live-streaming).

After the meeting

  • The organizers will not publish anything during the same day, aiming to offer a fresh experience to the participants of the second and third meetings.
  • On the next day (or so), expect
    • Video recordings available on Commons and YouTube
    • A report
    • Full automatic transcript
  • We may release short video capsules about specific topics covered during the meeting.

ፍላጎት

ለመታደም ፍላጎት እንዳለዎት ለማሳየት ስምዎን ከዚህ በታች ይፈርሙ ( ~~~~ ) እባክዎን ይህንን ለመገኘት እንደማይፈለግ ይወቁ ፡፡ ዝግጅቱ ከመከሰቱ አንድ ቀን በፊት ለንግግር ገጽዎ አስታዋሽ እንልክልዎታለን ፡፡ በሌላ መንገድ ማሳወቅ ከፈለጉ እባክዎን ያሳውቁን ፡፡

2021-02-02 at 12:00 UTC

  • Presenter: Quim Gil
  • Note-taker: Jackie
  • Moderator: Krishna
  • Time-checker: Mehman

2021-02-02 at 18:00 UTC

  • Presenter: Quim Gil
  • Note-taker: Jackie
  • Moderator: Denis
  • Time-checker: Mehman

2021-02-02 at 23:00 UTC

  • Presenter: Quim Gil
  • Note-taker: Jackie Koerner
  • Moderator: Oscar Costero
  • Time-checker: Zita Zage
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