Hi Galder,

You claim that "Essentially the Board members have to look at the facts and the context and make a decision about what they think is the best". No. That's not true. The board members can't make decisions of any kind, because there's "the organization's interest" that is above their will. How can we justify the Board making deliberations if they can't decide anything different from those called "interests"?

Just wanted to respond to this, because evidently my explanation was lacking!

So the Board must act in the best interest of the WMF (which is the same as the WMF's mission).

However, they are really the only people who define what this means. The Board can agree even very radical proposals so long as they are sure it's the best way to further the WMF's mission. There is no-one looking over their shoulders.

In a sense it is a bit odd. Board members have a duty to do exactly one thing, which is further the organization's mission. But there are very few rules for how to interpret that one thing - they have to assess facts and apply judgement about how to do it. They can agree very radical proposals if they believe that is the best thing to do.

You are very right, however, that the WMF is not a democracy. When the WMF was set up, those involved chose not to make it a membership organisation. "Democracy" is a challenging concept to apply to the Wikimedia movement - after all we do not want decisions made mainly by the very large number of people who contribute to the English Wikipedia - but we can do a lot better than what we presently have...

Chris