George Herbert wrote:
On Dec 18, 2007 10:55 AM, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Milos Rancic wrote:
While WMF is better the it was, there are still a
number of systematic
problems. The main problem *is* ambivalent position of the Board:
something between despotic, oligarchic and representative democratic
body. (Of course, in the sense of from where power comes, not in the
sense of methods.)
This is a fundamental problem in democratic organizations, despite the
fact that it has been repeatedly stated that Wikipedia (and hence
Wikimedia) is not a democracy.
I don't know about the "...and hence"; WMF is not en.wikipedia
Nobody is saying that it is.
WMF is a traditional charity company organization,
with the added
wrinkle that most of the board of directors come from the community
via open elections. In that sense we resemble a republic, not a
democracy, but it's still not a governmental structure... it's a
charity company, mostly-elected board and hired executive(s) and
staff.
I'm sure we could have long philosophical debates about the difference
between a democracy and a republic, or between governance and
government, and I'm sure that when and where that distinction is
important I'll be right there insisting on it.
Rulership
structures want to get on with
the business at hand, and it can be terribly frustrating when decisions
must be made to wait for any kind of consensus from the populace. We
even have difficulty defining just who that populace is, and that makes
it more difficult to know who should be a participant in the consensus.
While the Paris Commune of 1871 debated, the outside forces did not
hesitate to do what was necessary to run them over.
I think you're confusing the projects and Foundation too much, and
misreading how the Foundation works.
Governmental analogies only go so far, and I think yours have gone
past the breaking point...
I disagree, of course. It's in the nature of
publics to debate minor
issues to death, and be completely silent when their input is needed.
Ec