Angela wrote:
On 1/28/06, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
One other issue that needs to be dealt with immediately is the opposition vote by a member of the Wikimedia Foundation board.
Two members of the Board were elected by the community, so, unsurprisingly, those two people are going to be involved in community matters like this poll. I realise some people would prefer the Board be made only of external people, but with the current situation, you're going to have to accept that at least two people on the Board have dual roles of being on the Board and being Wikimedians. I am not going to accept the constant attempts to prevent me expressing any opinion outside of official meetings.
We will soon have the Special Projects Committee http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Special_projects to decide things like this, so I can't see the results of the poll going directly to the stage of Board decision anyway. Since we're delegating authority away from the Board, my view on the matter, as someone not intending to be on the SP Committee, isn't any more relevant than that of anyone else voting.
Angela.
As for having members of the board being outsiders, I think that should not happen at all or under exceptional circumstances. I support the concept of Wikimedians being involved with the board, and I understand the role of being both a leader and a contributor... and having opinions as well. We live with that on all of the Wikimedia projects anyway, where admins and bureaucrats are also ordinary editors and contributors as well... each with their own opinion and often vote on things like VfDs and policy questions within projects.
I was just trying to point out as a practical matter that if you already have objections to some proposal, unless some very convincing arguments are offered between when you register that objection and when you will see this proposal before the board formally I don't see that you are going to change your mind. And with only four other members on that same board this proposal for Wikistandards has an uphill intellectual battle to fight to convince at least three members of the board (for a simple majority... I know the board tries to reach concensus instead in most matters anyway) to support the proposal. In addition, just because you are in a leadership role you will have some supporters that will simply follow your lead on opinions as well. This has also happened with Wikistandards and is nothing to be ashamed of. You lead and others follow, that is by definition leadership. I've seen it happen with votes I've done on Wikibooks myself, and in other areas of life.
BTW, I like the idea of a specialized committee that would review project proposals like Wikistandards. It would at the very least provide a single source of contact to ask questions about proposing new projects, rather than posting comments on Meta and having the question sit unanswered for several months with just random opinions from other users that come up from time to time, or get into a flame war on this list.