Nikola Smolenski wrote:

On Monday 14 June 2004 01:08, daniwo59@aol.com wrote:

...

In a message dated 6/13/2004 5:53:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, rkscience100@yahoo.com writes: Anthere has now clearly overstepped her authority. As of today, Anthere has quite a bit more authority than you care to imagine. Pick your enemies wisely, Robert. I wouldn't go launching attacks on the Board if I were you.

Now what kind of dictatorship is this? Are you saying that the Board will revenge for attacks or what?

(I'm not against Anthere in any way, but would of course be against such abuse of privileges if it would to happen.)

The Foundation is also here to ensure the core values of the organisation are preserved, just as Jimbo himself has been doing for now 3 years and a half. These core values are among others : neutrality, copyright respect, openness, love for others and genuine concerns for the diversity of opinions.

Should someone *greatly* put into danger these values, I think it is the board role to act to limit damage, IF the community did not act BEFORE (or if it is slow to act, or if the community does not dare acting for any reason, such as fear of legal threats). In this type of extreme situation, it is within the board authority to exclude a participant from the project.

See for references :

Section 4.3. REMOVAL FOR CAUSE. Members of any classification may be removed from all membership categories for cause by a four-fifths vote of the Board of Trustees, such decision shall be final and unappealable. For any cause, other than non-payment of dues, removal shall occur only after the member against whomever the complaint was made, has been advised of the complaint and has been given reasonable opportunity for defense before a committee to be formed and convened only should the occasion arise. The Board of Trustees, at it's sole discretion, may maintain or remove any such user's account from any of its projects upon such removal for cause which may also be for successive membership terms (i.e. numbers of years); such removal shall mean said individual shall not be allowed to contribute to any Wikimedia project until said time is completed. This removal process shall not be the same as the process of temporary (long or short term) suspension of member editing privileges on any Wikimedia project.

So, from a practical perspective, what Danny said has sense.

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However,

First, I do not think such a situation applies to RK. If editors have issues with RK, they should first seek to solve the issue with him directly, or ask help from a mediator, or go to the arbitration committee.

Second, I got to know RK in the past months, and I am now used to his rather hot way of speaking. I really wish he be more polite with me, just because I am a human being. Not because I am a board member. I really wish he be less sensitive on all jewish related topics.

Third, and this is the most important point of all, if the foundation has to maintain the integrity of the whole project, it has not to be implicated in every day management of each project, where there are plenty of good people to do so.

Last, I may be a board member, I am also just an editor. And as an editor, I may do wrong, I may be biased, I may delete something too quickly, I may be impolite, I may infringe copyrights by mistake, I may get upset when talking about politics, I may just have a bad hair day. I will try to avoid all this the best I can. But if that happen, this day, anyone may complain and not fear I will have revenge desire :-)

Angela and I are here to represent you, Nikola, not to police you :-)