On 25 February 2016 at 12:13, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote: ...
Second, this is the exact part of the Board's internal mythology about the enemies inside of the movement. They've been repeated since Florance and Angela leaved the Board. I suppose Jimmy is the most responsible for spreading that. What I can't understand is the fact that I don't see that too much (s)elected Board members have integrity above Jimmy's rumors threshold.
Third, may you give to me *one* example of movement being in confrontation with WMF's legal foundations, thus requiring Board to react to protect WMF against the evil community?
I'm probably a good example of when 'the Board' thought they needed to protect the WMF against a prominent community member. At the time when I was inaugural Chair of the Chapters Association, I was informally advised by two board members that Jimmy briefed the WMF board against me, though I was never copied. Now after a couple of years of gossip since these events, I have no doubt that I was investigated by WMF legal. The WMF has publicly refused to copy me with their reports or internal emails about me, or to confirm whether they do or do not still have reports on record.
Denny's email is correct in many respects, with our experience over the last ten years, it is hard to imagine the WMF changing in a way that would allow a Wikimedia community focused organization to have sufficient resources or political power to be able to hold the Foundation to account. In the current set up, the WMF at the top level would only see a strategic threat and WMF legal would advise against allowing the risk. Individuals within the WMF do believe otherwise, some have always been vocal about it, however while Jimmy sits on the board as a voting trustee and has sufficient power or charisma to suppress dissent within the board, changing to more healthy attitudes is impossible.
In the next round of elections, perhaps we should be looking for a WMF trustee with sufficient character to push through real change over a few months, rather than the current board who think that vaguely talking about change happening in 2017, or 2018, or just waiting until the old guard is ready to retire, is radical enough. I would be delighted to see Christophe be the next Chair, as a young man with plenty of hard earned political scars and impressive achievements, though he may have nicer ways of spending his time.
Fae