Re: WMF Board of Trustees: Board Selection Process Update

Risker wasn't at WCNa that year. Personally I prefer ViridianPenguin's
summary, as he was near me and it best reflects what I remember before I
like that session to cry in the hallway.

On Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 6:55 p.m. Tilman Bayer via Wikimedia-l <
[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Risker,
>
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 12:22 PM Risker via Wikimedia-l <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Not everything is a conspiracy, folks.  Raju was about to "term out", to
>> be mandatorily retired from the WMF Board due to term limits, as of January
>> 1, 2027; originally, his term would have ended on October 1, 2026.
>>
> Yes, I had already explained that in more detail in my linked comment on
> the Board noticeboard on Meta-wiki (including how October 2026 would have
> coincided with the bylaws' nine years limit, considering that he first
> joined in October 2017); I had also pushed back there against speculations
> that he had been "dismissed" or such. Not sure what you mean exactly by
> "conspiracy".
>
> That 'end of term' date only moved because the Board was realigning all of
>> its term start/end dates to January 1. Those of us who have been around for
>> a long time remember that the term start dates used to be a day or two
>> before Wikimania started each year, but that was a moveable date and made
>> it more difficult to manage.  Since the term start date has moved to
>> January 1, any appointments that have been made all wind up ending on
>> January 1 of whatever year, regardless of when the person is appointed.
>> There is only one further scheduled board meeting before Raju's term will
>> naturally expire.
>>
> Board members also engage in various other important activities besides
> attending the scheduled meetings of the entire board (you can learn more
> about this in the Board handbook
> <https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal%3AWikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook#Board_compensation_and_time_commitment>
> ).
>
> For example, the Board's October 1, 2025 meeting where Narisetti presented
> <https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Minutes:2025-10-01> (and the Board
> approved) that controversial new community candidate review process
> developed by his committee, and recommended the removal of Lane and Raval
> as candidates, was an unscheduled one
> <https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_meetings#2025>. And that's
> not even talking about the kind of committee work itself that such board
> decisions build on.
>
> Raju has been a volunteer member of various boards (including several that
>> are aligned with our own mission in various ways) for longer than Wikipedia
>> has existed. Why is it a big deal that he's stepping away one meeting
>> before he has to?
>>
> "big deal" are your words, not mine. For those trying to assess the
> dynamics in the ongoing discussions about the governance committee's recent
> announcement, I do find it useful to know that the chair of said committee
> suddenly departed recently, just over three weeks after said announcement.
> (You may debate "suddenly"; I mean it in the sense that this diverges from
> the previously announced end date in just a few months, and that - as
> people pointed out on Meta - there doesn't seem to be an official WMF
> announcement yet accompanying his LinkedIn post, aside from the silent
> update here <https://wikimediafoundation.org/role/board/> that some
> community members happened to notice
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#WMF_Board_size>.)
> You could imagine that a committee chair's interest to see their work
> through on such an important governance matter might often take precedence
> over his interest in saving a bit of time by skipping an upcoming scheduled
> board meeting. (But then again, as discussed above, your apparent
> assumption that attending those scheduled meetings make up the majority of
> a trustee's activities is questionable anyway.)
>
>
>> I think it is also disengenuous to take out of context the statement by
>> Maryana Iskander. She is right that the Board was pretty deeply divided
>> when she arrived. One of her mandates was to change that, but she never
>> really had a chance to make that point during that particular public
>> discussion because she was interrupted.
>>
> As indicated in my previous post, I was going by Barkeep49's linked
> summary of what Maryana said at the event. Admittedly I didn't attend it
> myself, so if you think that Barkeep49's summary was "disingenuous" or
> lacks context, by all means correct that (although, seeing Hannah's
> comment, it appears that your own framing of what was said is not
> uncontested either). In any case, I don't quite understand how Maryana
> having had such a mandate would change the takeaways in the current
> situation anyway, or what (if anything) is disputed exactly about her
> "effectively two boards" observation that I quoted.
>
> Apropos, while you are sharing your insider knowledge about such things
> and telling us what the former CEO wanted to say but didn't: Do you happen
> to know whether the current CEO has such a mandate as well?
>
> Prior to Maryana's arrival, only rarely did appointed board members
>> interact with the community in any way.  This has changed drastically:
>> since 2022, appointed board members have been actively participating in
>> community events, both global (e.g. Wikimania) and at regional conferences.
>> This even extends to members of the Endowment board, several of whom
>> attended and participated throughout the Paris WIkimania. This was a pretty
>> major cultural change on the part of the Board, and I think it is one that
>> should be welcomed and encouraged.
>>
> That's great to hear, although I do seem to recall quite a few appointed
> board members attending and participating at pre-2022 Wikimanias too.
>
> Also, not sure you are aware, but this March the board formalized a "Community
> and Affiliate Liaisons" role
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/Board_of_Trustees/Community_and_Affiliate_Liaisons>
> for trustees that appears to encompass the kind of community event
> participation that you are talking about, and appointed 2
> community-selected and 0 appointed trustees to it. (I do realize of course
> that this is not directly contradicting what you said, considering that you
> were referring to the previous CEO's tenure.)
>
> In any case though, since you are offering this as pushback about the
> particular case we are discussing here: I don't recall seeing a single
> public communication by Narisetti about the topics in question (as the
> chair of the board committee that drove these controversial items: The
> August 2025 election process change, the new "Candidate Review Process"
> policy announced in October 2025, the removal of Lane and Raval as
> candidates two days later, and now this new eligibility criteria proposal).
> Which is in stark contrast to the general picture you are trying to paint.
> Instead, the burden of interacting with the community in public during the
> height of last year's board governance controversy and providing more
> clarity about the Board's actions fell largely on community trustees, such
> as Victoria (who caught a lot of flak in that context even though she
> was not on Narisetti's committee herself), Lorenzo and Maciej. See e.g. our
> summary in the Signpost
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2025-10-20/Special_report> at
> the time.  (And to clarify, I mean "interacting" in the sense of addressing
> questions, offering context and arguments etc. - as opposed to being the
> person who posts a staff-drafted announcement on behalf of the entire
> Board.)
> If I have overlooked any public comments by the board governance
> committee's chair about these matters that "should [have been] welcomed and
> encouraged", please provide links. And yes, I'm aware that some appointed
> board members (who were not on the governance committee) later last year
> attended at least one regional community event and engaged in conversations
> about such topics with a number of community members present there. That's
> great, but different from the IMHO more challenging and higher impact work
> of communicating during such controversies in public spaces like the wikis
> or this list, where the entire movement is able to read and refer to them.
>
> Regards, Tilman
>
>
>>
>> I agree with many in this thread that it would be good to have increased
>> leadership training.  At one point, some of that took place at Wikimedia
>> Summits, but that was geared entirely toward affiliates and was explicitly
>> not related to developing leadership candidates outside of the affiliate
>> sphere.  Some of that continues to happen indirectly with various
>> volunteer-based committees, but to some extent people need to have shown
>> some leadership talent before they get onto those committees.  I think we
>> need to do better.
>>
>> Risker/Anne
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 10 Aug 2026 at 13:15, Tilman Bayer via Wikimedia-l <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> To explain Luis' slightly cryptic "more board news today" comment:
>>> Raju Narisetti, the chair of the Board Governance Committee - on
>>> whose behalf Margo sent the message that opened this thread, and which had
>>> led last year's controversial selection process changes and candidate
>>> removals
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2025-10-20/Special_report>
>>> - suddenly announced his departure from the board the other day (see
>>> also
>>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#c-HaeB-20260810080100-Boud-20260810054700>
>>> ).
>>>
>>> Also, to keep conversations connected: Worth being aware that on July
>>> 31, a different Board Governance Committee member (i.e. not its now
>>> departed chair) posted an update
>>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2027/Proposed_eligibility_criteria#c-Nadzik-20260731153200-Response_from_the_Board_Governance_Committee_to_community_feedback> regarding
>>> the eligibility criteria on Meta ("We realize that our proposal needs more
>>> work to achieve these goals").
>>>
>>> Regards, Tilman
>>>
>>> PS: Not to zoom too much into particular personnel examples, but this
>>> whole debate might be an occasion for the Board to explain and juxtapose
>>> its eligibility criteria for the other (appointed, i.e. non-community
>>> selected) trustee positions as well. Also in light of the previous WMF
>>> CEO's comments (as reported here
>>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk%3A2025_WMF_Board_reform_petition#c-Barkeep49-20251019133900-ViridianPenguin-20251019030700>)
>>> that the community-selected and (non-community) appointed trustees form
>>> "effectively two boards (not that they were at odds necessarily but
>>> operating in almost parallel) and how hard that made her work as a CEO". I
>>> am not one of those who think that, say, every trustee must have edited
>>> Wikipedia or that we need ideological litmus tests (in the sense, say, that
>>> you cannot be a high-ranking executive in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp while
>>> serving on the board). But at a time where some seem to be pushing for WMF
>>> to compromise on its longstanding free knowledge ideals and guiding
>>> principles in order to serve the organization's own narrow financial
>>> interests, it's worth asking how much we know about the appointed Board
>>> members' pre-existing stances about such ideals and principles.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Aug 9, 2026 at 1:38 PM Luis Villa via Wikimedia-l <
>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Since there is more board news today, sending a long-drafted followup:
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 7:45 PM Erik Moeller via Wikimedia-l <
>>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Wikimedia Foundation needs folks with relevant governance experience
>>>>> for an organization of this scale, but it also needs voices that
>>>>> challenge it and push it in new directions on the Board. The trick is
>>>>> to find the right balance between those goals. Requiring that people
>>>>> advance along an internal functionary ladder towards the possibility
>>>>> of standing for trusteeship is not that balance; it is the kind of
>>>>> requirement structure you find in institutions that drift towards
>>>>> stagnancy and self-reinforcement, often out of institutionalized fear.
>>>>>
>>>>> A compromise proposal:
>>>>> * Change the word "must" to "should" when it comes to the governance
>>>>> experience criteria
>>>>> * Require that candidates indicate comparable or equivalent experience
>>>>> in their candidate profile if they do not meet these criteria.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> To echo and add to what Erik said: Governance of an organization like
>>>> WMF is a wickedly complex problem, requiring many different skillsets. It's
>>>> not enough to have good *ideas* - you have to have the *skills* to make
>>>> those ideas happen: how to understand an auditor's report; how to think
>>>> through the human politics of governance; employee management skills; etc.
>>>> etc.
>>>>
>>>> So I think tightening skills and experience requirements is pretty
>>>> reasonable.
>>>>
>>>> I like Erik's suggestions, and would add: WMF should invest in board
>>>> skills development, not just restrict those who don't yet have the skills.
>>>> Among other things, this could be formal training through services like
>>>> https://boardsource.org/; or experiential learning through board
>>>> observer seats/fellowships like Haas does for their b-school students:
>>>> https://haas.berkeley.edu/cssl/programs-events/board-fellows/ The
>>>> former would be good skills development for the movement, and the latter
>>>> would double as a transparency move.
>>>>
>>>> I mean *invest*, not "commit to invest"; the Foundation should do a few
>>>> years of this investment and *then* put in stricter rules, since otherwise
>>>> the temptation for new board members to say "this is not necessary" and
>>>> pull the drawbridge up after them would be very strong.
>>>>
>>>> I would also add, beating my recent drum: much of the energy that goes
>>>> into Foundation board questions should instead be going into making the
>>>> Foundation less central to the movement. That goes for the board -- who
>>>> should be following through on the "infrastructure for open" commitments of
>>>> 2030, not re-centralizing, so that the exact composition of the board is
>>>> less important -- and for many movement leaders: *you can be a movement
>>>> leader without being on the WMF board*. There are so many ways to lead.
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