On 9 October 2011 12:48, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Risker, 09/10/2011 18:40:
Two board members are selected by chaptersl however, the board has
certain
rights to refuse the selected candidates. Chapter-selected candidates
will
be appointed in 2012.
The WMF-wide community holds an election in odd-numbered years to
nominate
three candidates. Again, the board has certain rights to refuse the candidates with the most votes.
The remainder of the board members are selected for their expertise, with the exception of the "Founder" seat which is approved on a regular basis.
The primary responsibility of Board members is to the Foundation, not to
the
community or the chapters or to any other external agent.
I find this response a bit odd. ;-) It almost seems to assume that the community (or Nathan?) is likely wanting to elect someone the WMF couldn't accept, or that "responsibility to the community" is a bad thing, while we used to say only that there's no imperative mandate and that chapters-elected trustees are not chapters representatives, etc.
I'm not sure what you find odd about it, but it is factual.
The key point is that board members must work on behalf of the Foundation, and must not act as representatives of a particular constituency, and those constituencies cannot direct board members elected/nominated by them to act in certain ways.
I agree that it is not entirely relevant to this discussion: the board's statement on controversial content was issued in May, and all three community-nominated board members who signed off on that statement were re-elected subsequent to that.
Risker/Anne