Values/2016 discussion/Transcripts/N

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1	== your three values ==
2	=== 1 ===
3	Respectful - I believe it is important to show respect and care for those you work with, the audience you are presenting to, or the perspective you may be receiving. It is also important to assume good faith in an effort to create a space where others will acknowledge that even if something is taken poorly or offensively, it was not intended so. This creates a safe space and a more receptive space to have conversations where people can discuss different views and create a more unanimous respect for each other.
4	Inclusive - seek to understand different perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, behaviours in an attempt to improve inclusivity. Often times we inadvertently exclude because we are unaware or have not been exposed to something.
5	Collaborative - what WMF represents is already so collaborative but it is important to maintain collaboration internally as well as externally. This allows for new ideas, growth, understanding, inspiration, appreciation, quality, the list goes on.
6	=== 2 ===
7	Learning/Accountability/Iteration
8	* Participation: This is my favorite and most important value. I believe participation is central to who we are and what we do. In grantmaking, this is essential to our work and gives validity to the decisions we make. Here’s why: We--all of us, and all of our communities, directly and indirectly--raise money together. This is movement money. Not WMF/our money. We steward it on behalf of the community. Our grants team oversees a number of grant programs that include volunteers deciding (or at least strongly advising) on grant outcomes. Without community members participating in those decisions, they would be invalid and not legitimate. It brings to mind a phrase from the disability rights movement: “Nothing about us, without us.” People who will be affected by the grants themselves have a right to be a part of the decision making, always, and especially in the context of WMF funds.
9	Participation is important also in the way we do our work at WMF. Decisions and approaches should be shared -- at some level -- and people should feel they have a stake in the outcomes, and if they haven’t been a part of developing the process, participating in the work itself, or feel they have a stake in the outcome, it is likely not to succeed. Of course this is not practical or pragmatic in all circumstances, and I am not advocating that no decision ever be made except through a consensus process. That would not be efficient nor effective! But for the things that matter, participation is critical.
10	Participation brings about legitimacy. It also speaks to collaboration, accountability, and transparency.
11	* Shared power: In all ways we operate, we at WMF have to be willing to share decision-making, share ownership, share money, share resources, and share political power. Otherwise we operate in isolation and risk failure, and certainly limit our power as a true social movement.
12	We are lucky that there are many communities--individuals, organizations, and everything in between--that are motivated by the same things that we at WMF are. And I sense at WMF many times it may feel challenging or risky to share power. For many reasons that matter most in the short run. But to not share power has too many risks and downsides in the long run.
13	The way I see sharing power is that it starts with participation, but takes it further by putting money where your mouth is.
14	* Commitment to one another/connected: For me, the Wikimedia movement is all about the people behind the content. We share values, we share goals, we are humans here on these projects drawn in for different reasons but aligning on something that brings us together. We use the word “community” a lot and it means a host of different things. But what I mean by this is specifically about how we treat one another, how we welcome in people who have traditionally not been engaged, how we engage with and interact with each other at the WMF and in the movement.
15	=== 3 ===
16	Quality - The quality of our product/vision becomes better and better as we are more inclusive. The more we create a welcoming, inclusive, participatory culture, the more well-rounded and valuable our knowledge is. Also the quality of attention we bring to working with each other to fulfill our mission.
17	Possibility - A commitment to continuous learning and improvement - willingness to not always let the past dictate our choices (though we should learn from it). The ability to lift our heads up from the day to day or the status quo and ask questions about what could be.
18	Bravery/Courage/Curiosity - The ability to take a stance of humility when you feel like digging your heels in; to be willing to be vulnerable by putting aside your perspective and see what’s at stake for others - to consider multiple perspectives. I first called this “humility”, but changed to courage.
19	=== 4 ===
20	Credibility/Authenticity - Community trust and accountability - not only our products but our processes and evaluation practices our reputation, our work, and our information are high quality
21	Interdependence/Collectivism - Shared ownership that includes both recognition and partnership
22	Open - Inclusive in all aspects for diversity; equal access and power, free and open source, and transparent about what is being shared, what is being kept private and why, how people can play different roles
23	=== 5 ===
24	Trustworthiness/Credibility: WMF worth of being trusted, honest, reliable (which includes being reliable technologically, legally etc.). Nothing new in that value, but important to me...
25	Loyalty : Current relationship described in the guiding principles document is “shared power” between community, WMF and other structures. The term used in many circonstances is “partnership” but it does not fully reflect the reality of a situation where WMF has more power than the other stakeholders on various decision making. I fully appreciate the effort being done by WMF to share more power and there is no special criticism on my part on that topic. I simply think the relationship between entities should not be described only from a power perspective and I chose the term “loyalty” to describe “a strong feeling of support to the community and stakeholders generally” as being a suggested value for WMF. I must insist that I do not mean allegiance and loyalty should not be only a one-way value.
26	Ingenuity: not sure if a value or a guiding principle. But in a situation where the projects seem to get a bit “behind” compared to what’s happening on the Internet (technologically speaking for example, but perhaps socially as well) and whilst the community is increasingly “conservative”, we need to be more inventive and original in the process of applying ideas (emerging from all stakeholders) to solve problems and mostly to meet challenges. Ingenuity is the root latin for engineering. It describes the quality of being clever, original and inventive, in the process of applying ideas to solve problems or meet challenges.
27	My view is that WMF should be the leadership force and value disruptive decision making / actions. It seems to me that WMF is not considering itself simply as a “hosting” company. WMF has already been a living example of such behavior through, for example, legal actions on copyright issues or privacy. Whether ingenuity should be considered as a core value, a “nice to have” or a “acceptable attitude” is open to discussion.
28	=== 6 ===
29	Accountability
30	This is related to being a non profit, or a charity. Each person needs to feel accountable to our values, to our plans, and to where our purpose and future come from (this can be volunteers, donors, etc). I think this has the ability to solve some sticky problems and let us get on to sharing all knowledge with every human (including everyone’s participation). It makes good, helpful, colleagues and should reduce the need for stifling management.
31	Equity (Inclusiveness)
32	Equity is just the word that is coming up in this place for me today. Equity is how we can assure fairness and inclusivity in a world with uneven power. (Not even sure that’s the definition of equity.) It’s not really impartial, but it’s an effort we need to constantly make to include others in every aspect of what we do until all people are equal in holding and sharing knowledge.
33	Wonder
34	This speaks to motivation, and the way that knowledge speaks to humans. Wonder can keep us moving together or toward each other when some of the other challenges are demoralizing. I think it’s part of what helps people stop seeing the rest of the world as “other”. It’s something we’ve talked about in design and UX, using it as sort of an invitation for everyone.
35	== why are those good things? ==
36	== what risks come with operating with these values ==
37	Our organization does not exist in a vacuum and we may have vulnerabilities to attend to more than other more protective models
38
39	Everytime i sit down the words are different. I like this style of explaining it so we know what each other mean. Accountability - how we get good work and hwo we ensure we are working together. Each person needs to feel accountable to our purpose, our plans, our values, our donors. I think this can solve sticky personal problems when you are being accountable with yourself. This allows us to get on with our mission. It can make good colleagues and reduce the need for stifling management.
40	Equity - to me it’s about ensuring fairness and inclusivity. What I want is inclusivity and these are means to get there. Equity forces us to reflect on the fact that things are not equitable. Includes making sure that other people are included.
41	Wonder - because the other two were weighing me down a bit. And it made me think about wonder and how we relate to knowledge and move toward each other when other challenges are demoralizing and help stop seeing other people are “other” the idea of making things delightful and joyful even down to UX and design.
42
43	Interdependence - true shared ownership, who does it (assigning) as well as true partnership, but a shared purpose for a true collective mission.
44	Openness - for true diversity. Equal access, equal power, transparency and that all people know it all.
45
46	That were important to me now.
47	Trustworthiness - the mother ship is reliable and that we can trust it not to fall apart both the legal, technical and so on. It needs to be something that people keep in mind all of the time. When people work at the foundation they need to be aware that there is this expectation from outside and they need to prove that they are trustworthy.
48	Partnership - i have a problem with this word between all of the entities. The foundation has more power than the other orgs in the ecosystem. There is no equality of power. So I used loyalty because even if we aim to be loyal, there should be a feeling of loyalty toward the other players and just as partners, but they need to feel loyal to support them. I don’t like it that the value that describes this is equality of power, because it goes much beyond this notion of power or partnership because it does not describe what we are or should do.
49	We don’t want a n org that is only providing the basics: collecting, coding, talking to the media. We need the foundation to be a driving force. One of the things we need from the foundation to be “disruptive”. I would not have said this before but the community is not now daring. They are more conservative. If the community is not moving in that direction we need the foundation to move in that direction.
50
51	I started with my anti values: dogma, stubborness, moralizing, being a know it all. From there I got to my values.
52	Quality - I was surprised by this. I started with patience, and then thinking about quality. When I thought about patience, it was about being patient with others and ourselves, because in this complex world, we actually do need a lot of patience to understand the spectrum of perspectives. This runs counter to the go-go mentality and the tech sector, but that gets us a type of quality and be patient and not jam our ideas down other people’s throast and we get more well rounded knowledge and better quality products and experience. The quality of attention that we bring to working with each other.
53	Possibility - i liked with florence brought ingenuity and wonder, it’s about being able to see beyond and not get stuck in the past and how we do things. We should learn from it but we need the ability to lift our heads and see what it possibility.
54	Courage, originally there was humility, but I think it takes a certain kind of courage to take a stance of humility to put aside your own perspective and what you are lobbying for and see what is going on for someone else and what’s at stake. It’s about the willingness to consider multiple perspectives.
55
56	Shared power - to me I still find it core to how we do our work at WMF. It’s really challenging and risks to manage, they have to be grappled with. we have to share decision making power, share resources, political power, if we don’t  -- I see a huge risk. If we don’t share power, we are just a series of websites and then we are not a movement. I welcome the opportunity to share more power. What does it mean to other teams that are not as community facing.
57	Connectivity, something about being in it together, being committed to each other. All the people that are in our movement. We come here for different reasons, but we’re sharing values and/or goals and/or mission. And passion. I am deeply motivated by our commitments to each other. A strong and deep connection to each other.
58
59	Respect - for those that you work with and keeping good faith and assuming good faith, even if things might be perceived poorly and creating a space where people can assume good faith.
60	Inclusive - seeking to understand different perspectives. Often we exclude people cause we are not aware. Gender pronouns and if you don’t offer that people might feel left out.
61	Collaborative - maintaining that internally as well. People can get inspired and
62
63	Loyalty, shared power, there is not currently a problem with sharing power. The situation is way better on sharing power than it has been for years. I’m really happy to hear that staff is willing to share power even more. Simply I find it odd to describe the relationship between these entities as “power”. It should go beyond that. It should be about more than power. When there is a question of loyalty I want to make sure that this entity will proceed and become stronger and I want it to progress and become stronger. Not merely about sharing power, but a desire to help the other entities to grow.
64	Which way the loyalty flows, that’s also why I wrote it is not a question of allegiance, it’s both ways. Or multiple ways. Since we are talking about the WMF values I am mentioning it this way. As an individual, I feel loyalty toward the foundation, when I work in a user group or a movement, It doesn’t mean that I request shared power, I want WMF to be loyal to me. It’s important that we are here, volunteers, that we do exist and we improve. It goes both ways.
65	Some think that there is a problem of sharing power. I’m trying to understand different departments, but i feel we are struggling at the foundation, there are so many blockers to sharing power, there are so many barriers. I like how you are expanding the notion of loyalty and partnership and I am still focused on sharing power. It’s important to me because of the team I sit on because of the millions of dollars that I am stewarding.
66	If you look at the values we defined in 2007 these are the values we wanted to push forward because these were the ones we wanted to focus on. If this one is not satisfactory, then we should push.
67	Figuring out how to prioritize and thinking about which values would move us forward.
68	For me they should move us forward for something like five years a bit like a strategic plan that we should use right now for the people working now. Then it should be revisited because the organization is changing quickly.
69
70	How does inclusivity and equity fit into shared power and openness? I’m not sure that I know what you are asking for but I felt like shared power is weird when you unpack it. What is power and how do you share it. Is it pretending like you are giving it and equity might be a better frame. An active giving over or ceeding. Less than a sharing. Sharing makes it sound. Sharing makes it sound like a pot luck.
71	Power, who has it? But if you’re talking about loyalty equity, inclusion, there is bringing different perspective together. What puts people in that place that fosters loyalty, recognizing those different perspectives, that come to the table with different needs, languages, how we interact with each other.
72	What are the values that would create the conditions for loyalty. I am feeling the tension between loyalty and shared power. What are the conditions that would lead to shared power: that’s structural. But the conditions for loyalty, are very different. You can have loyalty without shared power. It’s resonant. I think there are a lot of ways to get there. Credibility. That’s a big one. I know I can come back to you and rely on you. We can have this transaction and I know how it will go.
73	That speaks to me as it’s not just about power. We can have loyalty without shared power. Most of the time the conversation is between WMF and the chapter - you can share money and voting - stuff that is measurable. You can describe it. It’s not so easy to touch when you come to the relationships with community members because there is no money to share and voting to share.
74	There are a lot of problematic possibilities, what are you being loyal to? Based on the past and it’s a way of creating a new separation, it can exclude future people.
75	I think this conversation is fascinating and how you are pushing me to power. It matter to me so much. Not so much what power do we cede. Thinking about who has power over the WMF. when we do something wrong, when we aren’t accountable, who can influence us? What power do they have over us at WMF? What are the mechanisms for recourse? What I keep coming back to, when we look at ourselves in the movement, we have to recognize that we are this one org that has hundreds of people, millions and a huge advantage. That creates a huge deficit, in terms of money and access.
76	Trifecta +1 (fourfecta?): participation, transparency, accountability and collaboration those are enables or values that would foster the conditions for shared power. Participation is goes beyond consultation: I let you participate but at the end of the day I decide (or best case, we decide together -- that is sharing power). Transparency allows check and balances and you understand my reasoning. Accountability gives me checks and balances, but I’ll still do what I want to do. Shared power gets beyond this. Those only go so far in service of what I think is ideal.
77	Power, that’s what problematic about empowerment. We don’t have the power to give people, we are developing capacity for people to take on problems locally. Helping them to identify their own means and build their own power. It’s not something that we have to give away. The FDC was a huge crazy change. No one is empowered by accountability. Now they can show that they are capable and accountable. That isn’t something anyone gave them, they took for themselves. Helping support skills development to grow power.
78	The word power has a negative connotation for me. Influence or enablement feel less polarizing. Enablement is an option, but enabling has negative connotations as well. It was the terms needed then.
79	In the past year the foundation is talking a lot about skills and capacity and might influence the terms.
80	How does this play out in how we bring free knowledge.
81	Accountable - more like reporting out. To me it is a looking inward. It’s more in the responsible, deep holding. It isn’t really about the expression of it. In a collaborative situation where a lot of people are supposed to participate, they don’t have roles where they tell other people what to do, it’s more of a each person worries about being accountable to the values. We don’t worry about everything that everyone does.
82	Accountability- if you said if everyone aspires to the value of accountability. What would they need to know? What would they need to understand. It would take more explanation, you would need to say what you are accountable to. Accountable to the annual plan or to what you said you were going to achieve. How does it play out individually and collectively? A simple example might be that you said you were going to do a project and you do it and you carry it to the end. You don’t expect others to fix it.
83	Is there a trust element in there. You can spend less time worrying about what other people are doing. So there is a trust element. How
84	I was looking if the term holoptism existed in English. Holoptism is the opposite of panoptism. Panoptism is for example a situation when you have cells with prisoners and a guard. The guard can see everyone. But the prisoners cannot see each other. In holoptism, every person can see everyone around him and what is happening. Simultaneously. That is what happens on a wiki. A holoptic environment. The word is holoptic, does it have an equivalence in english ? I prefer using holoptism to transparency. Transparency suggests checking, controlling and justification. Holoptism is just to be aware that something is going on and there you might be able to join and and be able to help. You happen to have the skills and be motivated so that you can join in. You don’t need to bug people, you just have a look and they are doing this and I can join and help. It’s happening on the wiki but not with the foundation and not with chapters. It’s isolated. Even though the wikimedia foundation has online meetings, we can’t see what’s going on. This is more than transparency, but we want more than that. We want to join in. it’s not to show us every single detail of what is being done. We just want to jump in on a project and help. The only massive moment when we can do that is when we meet face to face is wikimania. HOW DO WE JOIN IN? This is somehow the direction we can go in. I’m not such a fan of transparency, it’s not that we want justification, we want to be able to jump in.
85	Learning, showing individual and org learning. When we do something, what did we learn. It’s an org discipline that is tough. Making sure that we are not repeating the same mistakes, is really critical. Demonstrate that we don’t make the same mistake again. She thought this was related to the inviting collaboration and holoptic and sharing information in a way that invites people into participate and identify opportunities to participate. That’s related to learning in her mind. As we do, look for those opps to invite collaboration they should be meaningful. We should identify real opps to contribute because there is something in it for them, for us and the movement. It’s not about consultations or updates, meaningful or strategic work together. Creating the conditions for participation.
86	Shoving status updates out there is not an invitation to collaborate.
87	Collaboration is not just a value but you create the conditions for it. Transparency, inclusivity,
88	Think about these values in action, how does it play out? The act of collaborating, in terms of thinking about how you do your work everyday. Getting from point A to point B.
89	When you want to include new people, it’s hard. If we want to collaborate with 100. It’s logistically complicated no matter what you value.
90	Transparency does not equal good communication, but you can go to the foundation website and read it but if you can’t find what you need it’s not really serving the purpose.
91	What is currently being done by WMF could be done by other entities and WMF could focus on the truly disrupting things. That would allow to clarify who is responsible for what. That will decrease the number of staff people and might be useful. When I was explaining my feeling that we are falling behind. And i complain that the design is awful people say that they are used to it. The community is not moving on this topic. Perhaps some chapters and wmf should really pick on leading and changing things and shaking the community, but somehow it should be a direction. If it’s the direction that needs to be carved in stone, so that they can explain why they are being disruptive and describe it somewhere. That goes for the technology and for the legal position. In 2007 our position was to avoid upsetting government. We were low profile. We were defending the free license. That was our need at that time. The WMF then decided to jump in and become driving force. That was a bold position. Will that be taken in more directions or not ? Will it be reflected in other directions? If the WMF decides that WMF should be a disrupting driving force on many matters, then it probably ought to be mentioned in the values or guiding principles.