Yes, we are in agreement. Maria is an 'Appointed Trustee', not a 'Community Selected Trustee'. So the number of 'Appointed Trustees' went up by one, the number of 'Community Selected Trustees' went down by one.
For political convenience, the WMF board is spinning her seat on the board as if she were a Community Selected Trustee, but it's obviously not true unless we start redefining the plain English meaning of words. The result is a board with a democratic deficit, and the way most trustee boards with elected members handle this is to ensure that the appointed replacement will be obliged to stand for election at the earliest opportunity.
I welcome a procedure like this to be written up for the WMF board so that we can avoid the difficulty of vacated seats in a more credible way. The current system of bartering and balancing lists of pros and cons between sitting trustees, their lawyers, and a volunteer election committee that is appointed by the Board of Trustees, is unhealthy and it is a fantasy to imagine that the end result can be called democratic.
It would be a comfort if Maria Sefidari would confirm that she will be running for an election by offering up her seat at the earliest possible opportunity, rather than gripping on to it based on the tenure granted by James Heilman's democratic selection. We voted in an election where the winner of the election was the selected candidate, shifting the meaning of what our votes were for after the election, so the board can later on pick and chose from a list of candidates that they find to their political tastes, is not the way we want to run transparent and credible elections.
Fae
On 27 February 2016 at 12:09, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
Patricio's email on the topic makes it quite clear that María was appointed to the seat vacated by James Heilman:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-January/081540.html
And, as we are all aware, James was himself appointed as the result of an election. Unless the relevant authorities in Florida have overturned María's appointment and I have not heard about it, she is sitting in the seat formerly occupied by James.
I don't disagree that it would be a good thing to have a formally agreed procedure on how to handle vacancies that might arise in these community-selected seats, but that doesn't change the reality that we must deal with here and now.
Cheers, Craig
On 27 February 2016 at 21:47, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On 27 February 2016 at 11:33, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
While it's nice to think that everyone might be able to kiss and make up, the trustees (particularly Jimmy) and James have been mauling each other politely in public for the best part of two months. I don't think it's realistic to expect that everything can just go back to the way it was, and expect that the BoT would function properly again with James back in place. Keeping in mind his former position as a community selected trustee has already been filled with Maria Sefidari, at any rate.
Correction: Maria Sefidari was a "candidate for community selection", she was not selected by the community but appointed using an post election invented procedure for political convenience. If Maria wishes to become a community selected board member she would need to *win an election*, until that time she is in reality an appointed member.
I hope that Maria will run for a proper election at the earliest opportunity. She was a good candidate and would be a better representative if correctly elected.
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae