Talk:Submissions/How to transfer «power» from one to another Chapter Board «without pain»

How not do?

As a member of the Board of Wikimedia Ukraine both before, during and after the transfer of "power" by Yuri, I have serious doubts that Yuri is a person who can tell how to transfer power. I have attended a Boards training workshop in March 2014 where I could compare our performance with leading chapters (WMUK, WMFR, WMDE, WMNL, WMPL, WMIL etc.):

Criterion	Leading chapters	Yuri's case in WMUA
Approach	Responsibilities are shared between board members, Executive Director, committees and volunteers to make sure that all tasks are covered by at least two people and allow smooth transfer	Everything is managed by the Executive Director (Yuri), who is also: a board member head of the press service only administrator of domains and email only administrator of the blog only chapter member with access to the bank account
Transition	Former board members make an induction for a new board members, either online or offline	Former Executive Director switched off email to prevent new Executive Director from using it
Time to transfer stamp and documents	1 day (immediately after AGM)	10 days
Time to update legal documents	Several days to several weeks (depending on legal formalities)	14 months (Yuri was an Executive Director from 2009 to 2013 but never made annual updates to the Ministry of Justice, thus we had a huge backlog)
Time to transfer domains	0 days (already belong to the organisation)	13.5 months (domain was registered to a company where Yuri is working, WMUA had to wait until domain expires to gain control of it)
Time to transfer email administration	0 days (tech administration is not a responsibility of the Executive Director and does not need to be transferred)	When the domain expired (Yuri switched off email because directorwikimediaukraine.org.ua mailbox was transferred to the new Executive Director)
Time to transfer blog	0 days (PR is not a responsibility of the Executive Director and does not need to be transferred)	10 months (including 2 months when Yuri tried to claim WMUA blog was not affilated to WMUA)
Time to transfer Twitter account	0 days (social networks are not a responsibility of the Executive Director and do not need to be transferred)	9 months
WMF staff involved in transfer from one board to another	0 (no need for WMF staff)	2 (Asaf Bartov and Stephen LaPorte)

I think Yuri is in a good position to make a presentation on how not to transfer power or how to transfer power with a lot of pain. Otherwise this would be on of the greatest fiction stories one can find at Wikimania — NickK (talk) 23:17, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

You are right, NickK. I posessed all power in the organization, which I created – I controlled and managed everything – I was a board member, head of the press service, the only administrator of domains and email, only administrator of the blog, only chapter member with access to the bank account anf stamp of the organization. I was able to close oganization, I could keep a stamp and access to bank accounts untill the Minutes of the AGM were signed or forever. Nevertheless the WMUA continue to exist and is quite successful.

Thank you, NickK for the table above. I will put it on the first slides of my presentation. --Perohanych (talk) 09:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Several points on what you may also want to add to the presentation:

• Out of 41 existing Wikimedia chapters, there was only one chapter where a former chairperson blocked the organisation - it was Wikimedia Macedonia. Thus your performance is rated 40th out of 41, and I have serious doubts it is an achievement
• In the other 39 chapters a person who have attempted to do something similar to your actions would likely end up being expelled from the organisation. Most of chapters have measures in place that prevent one person from blocking the entire organisation, and I think that colleagues from, say, WMUK have much better experience here
• Most of chapters have already changed board chairs and CEOs several times. None of their former chairs or CEOs even thought of blocking the organisation, and in most cases there was no strictly no problem with transfer

To sum up, I think that the more appropriate title of your submission would be "How I had a plan to close a Wikimedia chapter that elected me as an ED but decided to just create them a lot of pain instead" — NickK (talk) 12:17, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Everyone has a right to have his point of view. Noone plans to kill his own child, wich was born in pain and blood.

Probably the more appropriate title of my submission would be «How to create a Wikimedia chapter, bring it to a mature state and to pass control of it». --Perohanych (talk) 19:13, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

The goal of a Wikimania submission is to present something others can learn from. The title suggests that you want others to learn how to pass control of the chapter, which is not something you were good at, as nearly all other chapters were doing better. This is not a point of view, this is an objective comparison: I have provided figures above. No other chapter had an Executive Director who turned off email of their successor, no other chapter took 13.5 months to transfer domains etc.

What I agree is that while you where an ED, Wikimedia Ukraine became mature from the point of project activity (although this wouldn't be possible without of team of several dozens volunteers). However, Wikimedia Ukraine was very far from being mature organisation-wise, as almost all organisational processes were based on one person, namely, you. It took us a year to build a new structure that would not be based on a single person, and we are still far from being perfect (and mature) here. I think that you are in a good position to present WMUA projects in 2009—2013, but this does not seem to be a part of your presentation — NickK (talk) 15:33, 26 February 2015 (UTC)