2009/8/26 Sebastian Moleski <sebmol(a)gmail.com>om>:
Hi Thomas,
On Aug 26, 2009, at 2:48 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)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).