2009/8/26 Sebastian Moleski sebmol@gmail.com:
Hi Thomas,
On Aug 26, 2009, at 2:48 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia is a community driven movement, big decisions should be made by the community.
Those are undoubtedly interesting assertions. Assuming the second one is the case (big decisions should be made by the community), it raises even more the question of why it is necessary or appropiate for the selection of Foundation board seats to be discussed with the project communities, doesn't it? That would really only make sense if you expect the Foundation to make decisions that significantly impact activities within the projects, something you just ruled out. So why?
I consider "big" to be a stronger term than "significant". There are significant decisions that aren't big enough to need community consultation. What individuals to appoint to expert seats falls under that category, for example. I'm not suggesting the community should be making the actual decisions on who to appoint, but we should be the ones deciding on basic values, etc. Whether or not it is appropriate to sell seats on the board is something so basic that I think it should be decided by the community (or, at least, decided after consulting the community, it probably doesn't need an actual vote).