On 10/09/11 9:58 AM, Risker wrote:
On 9 October 2011 12:48, Federico Leva (Nemo)nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Risker, 09/10/2011 18:40:
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.
It's not the factuality of the statement that is odd. The Hong Kong style of democracy that insures that the elected members can never form a majority is.
In a fully democratic country all elected representatives work on behalf of the country, but they still represent particular constituencies and/or parties, to which they are accountable. Without that the entire notion of constituencies is a sham. When they fail to represent the interests of their constituencies they should be voted out.
Ray