On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 2:48 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
What I will disagree on is with the notion that the board has to take the org's side against the movement by definition. It is my understanding that the board has the role of oversight of the org -- that is, it's the board's job to ensure that the Foundation is effectively accomplishing the goals it was created to perform.
As much as I agree with Brion, probably Denny's message is telling us a lot. I haven't read carefully the WMF Board Pledge of personal commitment, but this is not the first time this issue is discussed: see for example Cristian mail, two months ago, tackling the very specific thing. [1]
Maybe the Board "feels" a lot of pressure about this, and this is a problem on itself. We all know that "toxicity" of an environment doesn't need laws or written rules, but people being people, social pressure, etc. If Board members feels without power, bound to the WMF and not the Movement, that's a real problem we need to look into.
Aubrey
[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2015-December/080600.html