2007/12/28, Derrick Farnell derrick.farnell@gmail.com:
What mechanisms do we have in place where we could consult with the whole Community?
None as far as I am aware - which is my complaint! :-)
But there are already mechanisms for the community to elect board members, and of course decide the content of projects, so why not also for every other decision? There could be an online location for such debates (the Foundation wiki?), which would be followed by a vote. Even if only a small percentage of the community takes part in such debates and vote, that would still be hugely more people than the 8(?) on the board - and the point is that any member can at least in theory get involved, and have a vote. I've been an anonymous contributor for years, but am new to this list - has the community actually every agreed to the board growing from merely being an unwelcome legal necessity , as described in the piece in my earlier post? As the author wrote:
Making all or even vast majority of Foundation's decision by voting by general Wikimedia's projects community IMHO doesn't make sense. Foundation matters are mainly about the real-life issues - like methods of collecting money for maintaining servers, legal things - like changing bylaws or closing of a project because it contains large number of copyright violation etc. Bear in mind that if a decision made by voting would be against US law, Foundation's Board members should immediately resign - as the realization of illegal decision make them criminals in US. Bear in mind that Wikimedia's projects community is not a collection of registered citizens or at least members, but rather an amorphous group of project's accounts in vast majority completely or semi-anonymous. One can vote one day, and completely leave Wikimedia's projects next day. Moreover a system of voting of any decision could simply paralyze Foundation. What to do if a given decision has to be taken fast, for example overnight, and this decision might be crucial to survival of Foundation?