John Vandenberg, 31/03/2012 06:56:
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Thomas
Dalton<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 31 March 2012 02:03, John
Vandenberg<jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I expect that the minutes will explain the varied
positions of the
board. If not, then the board should put in place procedures to
prevent abuse of abstains.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "abuse of abstains"?
An abstention is a refusal to vote. By doing this, a trustee must
have a good reason, such as conflict of interest, and it should be
minuted why, or they are refusing the duties of their appointment and
should be removed.
The meaning of the abstention varies wildly among bodies, so I doubt you
can say so. It's currently unclear what an abstention means in the WMF
board, see
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_board_manual#Votes_vs._resolutions.2C_quorum_and_required_majority>.
The refusal to vote is always explicit and stated as such, often with
implied reasons (e.g. voting on the appointment of yourself somewhere),
and where not explicitly allowed can simply require the member to
temporarily go out of the room during the (discussion and) vote.
It's true that sometimes policies say that members can be requested to
explain their abstention, given its controversial nature, but it's
usually voluntary.
Moreover, I think that in this case the reasons for abstentions are
quite obvious, just knowing the persons or looking at the public
discussion. On the contrary, it's quite hard to understand the votes in
favour added to the bunch by the trustees who didn't engage in the
discussion or seem to have a strong opinion. That's why a summary of the
discussion in the minutes is useful, it explains why the decision has
been taken.
MZMcBride, 31/03/2012 06:12:
I'm not sure I agree with encouraging Board
members to explain their
votes,
though. I think the idea deserves further thought and
consideration.
Perhaps
there would be more value to doing so than I
anticipate. Personally,
I think
having Board members respond to direct follow-up
questions regarding
specific votes that community members are interested in (on the
mailing list
or on Meta-Wiki) would be more useful.
The summary of the discussion is often more useful than the actual text
of the resolution to understand what's been decided and why. There are
many ways to do it and I'm sure the board would be able to find a
suitable approach and stick to it.
Nemo